A Hand in Holding Hands 2nd Draft
by Skaian Redeemer
Summary: No friendships. Ever. That's what Kanaya told her, but Rose never really grasped it until she found herself in Ashen crush. Now the demon is pounding on the door and the culture gap widening, and Rose will do whatever she can to keep them all together.
1. Thunderhead

Trapped. Psychologically: like a deer in the headlights. Physically: sealed in a large metal box, the lights dim and the air stale and metal shock-cold under every footstep. No chance to live. They had no locks on their doors they could not control, and they had free reign of the upper levels, but did not dare stray far from those open cells. Outside the lab was ruin: the shattered Troll Incipisphere and the great, green demon that was Jack Noir, who hunted them. For her part, Rose staved off agoraphobia and cabin fever by carefully monitoring the progress of her fellow inmates, especially the twelve Trolls. She wondered if they realized that they were essentially trapped in their own cradle: the very laboratory in which they had been spawned. Or did it bear them any particular meaning at all?

Rose watched the others, as she would admit it was easier than watching her own behaviour. Psychoanalysis was fulfilling, and a solid distraction from the snake-whisper at the top of her hacked sylladex. She had buried the Thorns of Oglogoth at the top of her tree, and Rose hoped that the sheer nuisance of dumping her entire collection of game junk would deter her from picking at the gnarled root. Twice so far, it had. She kept the Quills of Echidna in her Strife Deck now. Much less powerful, much less dangerous: far more acceptable for polite company. Not that she could call them that. The Trolls had taken to their new Human neighbours much like how they had taken to their imprisonment: voluntarily, though not unanimously willing. True, they all recognized that without all hands, Jack would tear them apart. That was certain. But that hardly meant they had to make life easy for one another, especially when there was no obvious harm at hand. In the lab they were safe to muck and meddle, and there they stayed until safety had corroded their plans to nothing and time had become no more of a matter than a series of ticks on a wall. Rose was not sure how many she had logged since they had entered the Trolls' session. She had reached twenty-six, but Jade had tallied twenty-seven, and Dave was never around to ask for certain.

Dave was always away, and every time he left, Rose felt a sinking feeling in her gut. She wondered if Jade or John ever bothered to read past his coy wink and "Just going for a walk under the stars," considering that there were no stars. She wondered if the Trolls ever noticed how, whenever he left or just preceding, Aradia would emotionlessly unplug herself from her computer, rise with the whir of motors and disappear alongside. Rose noticed, and she understood that the Maid and Knight of Time were the only reason they had reached so many ticks on the wall. They were the reason Karkat was requisitioning strange data analysed daily and sent to his private inbox. Rose understood. Dave and Aradia were using the data to see Jack coming. With it, they were able to stop him from finding the lab - how, Rose could not imagine. When the data was lacking, they would disappear for even longer. She knew they waited for him, hour after hour, knowing that a moment's lapse in their patrol could mean blood that could never be restored. After her suspicions had been aroused, Rose had begun to watch the data, and applied it to what she knew of Jack from her own session. He was learning. He had drawn from his prototypes and grown in power while the sixteen of them cowered in the corner. Dave and Aradia might fight him to a standstill, but Rose suspected that if he ever found the rest of them, disorganized and ill-prepared, they would not all make it out alive.

Rose felt bitter about the whole situation, considering the power she had once wielded. She had put the Thorns aside on strong urging, after Jade had pulled her, barely alive, from her duel with Jack, but without them it was obvious that she had fallen well behind the others. Some days, she wondered if her hesitation was responsible for Jack's continued presence. Some days, she wondered the opposite. The Thorns whispered to her in the calmest of days. What good could come from answering the Dark Gods, after all she had seen? So Rose watched the others, mostly as distraction, and especially during free time.

"Egbert, you scrape of alien fecal matter on sole of Fate's ugliest boot, stop trying to piss me off. I've been over your archives at least twice, and it's obvious that the pinnacle of your human 80s filmmaking was John Travolta's hit sequel _Staying Alive_."

John and Karkat tended to hog the TV they had alchemized, and would watch it while lazing out on the couch they had parked in one corner of the computer lab. The TV and couch were two of several items Sollux had retrieved from their homes, and if they ever needed more, they could always pull from the grist generating setup he and Equius had prepared in the upper levels. For their free time, Jade and Nepeta tended to run rampant in the Underlab. Terezi preferred to bogart Dave when she caught him at home, and would drag him to the roof. Others found a different sort of way to spend their time, which they had all come to call "going outside." "Going outside" was partly a thinly-veiled innuendo, but was primarily the go-phrase for a private date. The rock outside the lab was the best any of them could do for variety, and the Veil could be anything you wanted it to be. For Sollux and Feferi, or Karkat and Terezi, it could be a place to walk together under the cloak of timeless void and pretend there was some beauty in which to conspire. Even Aradia and Equius went Outside from time to time. Who knew what they found in the open air. Beauty? Or perhaps a foulness in which to bicker and snip at one another, in good ambience. One way or another, it served.

Rose had no interest in dating any of her fellow prisoners, at least not out of hand. For her free time, she had abused the public alchemiter to make yarn or fresh journals and pens, but routine soon demanded more of her. Luckily it was not all dull. John and Jade were still around, Feferi was worth the odd conversation, and Rose was able to rely on daily chats with Kanaya as they worked on Karkat's never-ending data scans. So long as they kept to their work, things were simple. But life in the lab was beginning to change. It had all began the day Rose marked off her third tick, and it had spiralled from there.

"Are they older, maybe?" Rose had asked Karkat, the day after they were positive what was going on.

"We're all the same age!" he had said, gruff and terse. He had not really been in a chatting mood. She was interrupting his lunch, but she had figured Karkat was not going to be in a better chatting mood at any other time of the day.

"That's why I'm asking you. Is it possible you landed in a different order after the Reckoning?"

"Well... maybe, but you're talking days!" He had gestured at her with his deep-fat fried leg of hopbeast. "Look, I had twelve slimy grubs climbing over me. I had a slimy version of myself on my foot and _someone_ crawling up my pant leg-" Terezi had cackled. "...I think I remember what went down about as well as you'd expect."

Change had come to the lab with all the subtlety of John's favourite hammer. It started with Tavros, Eridan and Vriska as they began to, for lack of a better term, grow up. Rose had often wondered just how much older Dave was going to become thanks to his constant time travelling, ever since he had started going to John for shaving cream (which their Heir suspiciously had in bulk). Troll aging was more drastic. Rose first caught ear of it when she found Eridan in a fight with Karkat, and Eridan's voice had begun to warp to a hideous, deep rasp, like one possessed. Karkat, with an astounding, casual shrug of his shoulder, called it "post-wriggling penultimate moult" and returned to John to pick up watching _Xanadu_.

Eridan and Tavros were the biological victims. Rose could not think of two more opposed to be suffering so in kind. First there was the voice change. This had progressed from a rasp to an undercurrent hiss the other Trolls did not seem to hear, but gave the human prey animals the ventriloquist impression that the speaker was whispering at them from another direction. Beyond that, they were growing, and worse: they had begun to shed skin flakes. Karkat's inner neat-freak soon set to work, using a broom as a baton and whip combined to get them to clean up after themselves.

The itching was terrible, and often prepared the stage for the next change: a deep hormonal one that brought out sharp bursts of rage. Tavros mostly buried his rage if he felt the need at all. Rose saw only one, when he caught a terrible moulting itch on some still-sensitive skin trapped under the edge of his robot legs, and it had taken Equius over an hour to free him. Tavros had called Equius names none of them had even imagined he knew, and their mechanic replied only with redoubled work and sweat. Surprising to Rose, these violent waves, if not the changes in general, had begun to attract moirail-like attentions from the other Trolls in curious, pale flirtations that Rose was stretched to recognize. Gamzee had offered the unusually-furious Tavros a free night's rest on his horn pile, and Karkat had silenced one of Eridan's outbursts with a smack to the head and a series of threats that sounded almost genuinely concerned.

The new bodies emerging from the moult were surprising. Overall, they kept their basic shape: they would just as much resemble their teen selves as any human. But there were differences if one was willing to look. The boys were becoming larger in proportion to humans, and more built. With clothes on there was less to make out, but intimate living conditions bred a certain disregard for decencies, especially when one's lower body was constantly under mechanical repair. The skin on Tavros' bare chest met at sharper angles than Rose knew a muscular boy's should. The skin also seemed sublimely changed in a way that implied physical armour. It was clear that Rose was seeing her allies transform into apex predators.

But the worst was Vriska. While she still engaged in a healthy and active routine of spiteful jabs with Terezi and a worrying tail of John, her primary associates those days were her ex-kismesis and Tavros. Seeing her circle go through this sort of puberty had a symbiotic effect on Vriska's dreamself body. She too began to grow, shift in voice and, when her imagination got the better of her, itch and shed from time to time. While Sollux lisped that he was thankful that he wouldn't be "trapped in this stupid wriggling body for the rest of my life," it was clear that Vriska's situation was somehow _off_. As Rose had only seen adult trolls on computer screens and movie posters, she could not put her finger on the details, but Karkat was perfectly happy to put his boot through it instead.

"Hey. Moron," he had said, clapping Vriska upside the head with the butt end of his Broom of Office. "Just because you're making shit up as you go doesn't mean you don't have to clean the fuck up after yourself. Eridan! Tell your boyfriend that he either starts growing like a girl or he has to clean up moult-flakes like the rest of the boys."

Vriska had blushed up like a Christmas light, and reappeared the very next morning, drastically changed. Her shedding, as Karkat had implied, stopped entirely. The appearance of armour was gone, but the muscles had not, and she had shot up almost a foot overnight. Rose also got the impression that Vriska's dreamself had replaced her teeth with a new set of something not entirely bone: the new ones caught the light at some angles and looked particularly sharp. Vriska did not hide that she was growing new finger nails as well, though the word "claws" might be more correct given how she kept them groomed.

Rose had discussed the change with Kanaya. It had been one of their long nights, and they traded questions about Troll and Human gender roles, stereotypes and prejudices, especially considering the Troll's arguably-vestigial sexes. Any discomfort Rose had had evaporated over time - it tended to with Kanaya.

"She'll probably get back at Karkat for it, mind," Kanaya added near the end of the conversation. They were alone in the main lab, Kanaya browsing the Human internet as Rose sat on the desk alongside, one leg swinging back and forth.

"I don't suppose lashing out at your leader is exactly standard procedure," Rose had noted.

"It's probably closer than any human equivalent. On the other hand, Karkat understands that we're under a lot of stress right now. Some relief would be a help."

"Lashing out is relief?" Rose asked.

Kanaya had half-grinned, but she hid it to maintain her usual look as the neutral auxiliatrix. "It can work."

But the morning did not see any sort of revenge ploy. Karkat could be found, as ever, curled up on the couch. He had started the morning straight off with John, watching some cinematic atrocity where a character preached that "The gun is good!" but "The bone bulge is evil!" Jade was in one side of the room, playing games with Nepeta and their growing collection of alchemized toys and dolls, which Nepeta found endlessly fascinating. Kanaya was still in her room. Everyone else, including Dave and Aradia, were watching the three pubescent trolls scream at one another against the north wall. They were the laboratory's surprise alarm clock that morning, and had a dead zone around them of at least five feet.

"Listen, you little pus-sucking _insect_! If you don't open your mouth and give me an answer..."

Tavros had raised his arms up between him and Vriska. "Vriska, I'd really appreciate if you... uh..."

Eridan stepped closer, clapping his hand on Vriska's shoulder. "_vris, maybe if you'd come and turn that rage somewwhere productive..._"

Rose squirmed. Eridan must have been taking this fight personally if he was busting out his _tone_. She and her friends had found that all the Trolls had a vocal tone: a sort of throaty, heavily-accented warp in the voice that they used when they were impassioned in their own distinct ways. They did so casually, as though someone changing their tone of voice mid-sentence to one unique to them was the most natural thing in the world: Karkat's tone would change when he was shouting, Nepeta's when she was roleplaying. Whether it was voluntary or biological Rose did not know, but it ran ruin with the undercurrent hiss.

Vriska pushed Eridan aside with a jab from her finger. "Shut up, Eridan, if you were worth shouting at, _you'd have known a loooooooong time ago. Tavros, d8mmit, open your mouth or I'll show you wh8t productive rage looks like!_"

She decided to act on her threat and hoisted him, robot legs and all, an inch off the ground. She held him there for almost five seconds, before he proved too heavy even for her and she was forced to drop him, to the audible protest of the floor.

"_uH, gEEZE VRISKA, i REALLY DIDN'T THINK THIS WOULD BOTHER YOU SO MUCH._"

"Spine, Travros! Don't you dare open your mouth again unless you've grown some _nerve_!"

"I..."

Rose could not help but stare. Vriska was still like a train wreck with her explosions, where the outbursts of someone like Karkat had long since become routine. It was hard to look away, especially when Vriska was spouting off oxymoronic demands at the top of her lungs with absolutely no sign of self-awareness. But to Rose's surprise, only the humans seemed to keep their interest in the fight. Karkat had turned back to his film (he had an oddball respect for Troll Sean Connery, red diaper costume notwithstanding), Nepeta had never really left her game and Gamzee outright wandered over to his computer within the fight's perimeter to start whatever constituted his digital routine. Feferi continued to watch the fight out of the corner of her eye, fingers twitching. At one point Rose thought she heard Sollux say "Don't..." without looking up, but Feferi had already composed herself, and that was the end of it

Eridan attempted to interpose himself between Vriska and Tavros, which was not easy given how little ground Vriska had left between them. "Mindfang, why don't you just-"

Vriska's off-hand shot out toward his neck and lifted him into the air. She made a point not to meet his eyes. "Didn't I tell you to cool it with the FLARP names?" she threatened in a whisper. The hissing undercurrent that ran through all three of their voices suddenly became worse. Rose saw Jade and John shudder, and Strider try to repress his own. In Rose's case, it was as though she heard the sound of Vriska's whisper coming not just from Vriska's mouth, but also a second time, over Rose's own shoulder. A small trickle of purple blood seeped into Eridan's scarf and down Vriska's pinky.

"Cut it out!" Jade shouted from one side of the room. Vriska ignored her. Rose instinctively checked with John, but there seemed to be nothing he could do. Karkat was indifferent. True, John's pull with the Trolls was limited without Karkat's backing, but his pull with Vriska might have just been enough...

"Hey, Tavros," Vriska said as Eridan swung a wild kick at her. "If you're just gonna sit there with your mouth shut, hold your head still. _I just had the 8est idea._"

Tavros winced at her request. In doing so, he unintentionally lowered his horns, which suited Vriska's needs to a tee. She slapped a hand on his head to hold him there, and tried to raise Eridan up toward a horn-tip.

"Hey!" Rose snapped.

Rose did not stop to wonder why the three of them were up so early, though if she had, she might have thought twice about doing what she was about to do. She should have given more thought to what had brought them to fight, or should have imagined what might be going through their heads, but she did not. In hindsight, more than anything else she wished she had kept a better memory of her and Kanaya's eighteenth pesterchum conversation. It had been a critical quid pro quo conversation, a back and forth exchange of cultural data in hopes of stripping any future conversations of misunderstandings, exactly like the one Rose was about to make. But she did not, and instead she stormed up to Vriska.

"Drop him, Vriska," she ordered.

Vriska reacted very slowly, taking her hand first off of Tavros' head and then making a dramatic slow turn towards Rose. She lowered Eridan for need of his weight, but did not release him. Vriska took up so much time doing so, in fact, that Rose was able to take advantage of it.

"Sit down, Tavros," Rose said, trying to be calm.

"Rose, I don't really think-"

"Tavros: Sit."

He did as he was bid, walking away and taking his seat carefully at the side of the room. Rose did not watch him go. She had to keep her eye on Vriska, even though it meant breaking another one of the lab's unspoken rules. "Never look Vriska in the eye. Never." Vriska tossed back her hair with obvious disdain. Rose kept eye contact.

"What did you say to me?" Vriska asked.

Eridan decided to throw in his own chip. "Don't..." he gurgled. "Don't need your help here."

"Quiet," Rose ordered. Vriska stepped forward and leaned over Rose to emphasize her increased height, a sneer on her face that showed a full set of her terrifying new teeth. Rose was not entirely sure how much of Vriska's new appearance was genetic and how much was just her gruesome imagination born real in her dreamself, but there was everything unpleasant about standing in the shadow of a would-be alpha Troll.

Rose lowly raised her hand to Vriska's face, pointed to the floor. As she did, she double-checked her grip. _Do not draw your needlewands,_ she thought in mantra. Vriska had a quarter of the echeladder on her. Anything short of the Thorns would be absurd. _Don't tempt Fate while she still has her dice._ "Put... him... down."

Rose did not know it, but now everyone was looking at her. Nepeta stalled in mid-play, a plastic dinosaur dangling from one hand. Gamzee even looked away from his YouTube Poop. And Kanaya had finally arrived. She was completely absorbed, and watched with her arms crossed as she blinked away sleep. Vriska started laughing and, intentionally or otherwise, her grip on Eridan tightened. Rose's could not help but wonder if having Eridan at her mercy had re-lit some caliginous flame in Vriska's heart, and that was dangerous. With Vriska it was hard to tell, beyond that things could shift at any moment.

Rose set her own teeth and, pointing to Eridan, she slammed her hand down in the air. "Now!"

Vriska's expression shifted from confidence to surprise in an instant, but she recovered, and shrugged. "...Fine," she said, as though it were no concern of her own. "Gamzee!" Gamzee took to his feet, face still stuck in a grin, and Vriska tossed Eridan straight into him. With one last look at Rose, she tossed her hair back again and walked away.

Rose caught her breath at once and turned to leave, wishing she had never even gotten out of bed. But before she could leave, John caught her eye with a not-at-all subtle wave of his arms. He pointed back to Eridan, who was seething at Rose with black hatred. Rose caught John's meaning at once.

"Eridan," she called, exhausted. "Come on, let's have that looked at."

Eridan reached reflexively to his wounds. "What? Why?"

Rose tried - very hard, with limited results - to sound honest. "Because I'm concerned."

Eridan took a moment to really take this in, before he finally said: "...aw, man..." John gave her a thumbs up and Karkat smacked his arm. Rose calmly rolled her eyes at both of them as her deflated, would-be kismesis limped over to her. But it was hard to avoid the looks of the others, as they returned to their work. Eridan muttered darkly about how he had been upstaged, but he seemed a touch less honest about it. Stranger was Tavros, who did not return to work, but watched her with a curious look that only just began at gratitude. Vriska simply sat at her keyboard, tracing her finger in circles above her desk and muttering. Kanaya watched Rose the closest of all.

It would be a day and a half before anyone told her she had just done the clubbed equivalent of walking in and kissing them each hard on the lips.


	2. Eridan Ampora Happened

- tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering grimAuxiliatrix [GA] -

**GA:** Rose  
><strong>GA:<strong> What Is The Precise Nature Of Your Relationship With The John Human  
><strong>TT:<strong> Uh  
><strong>TT:<strong> Yes, hello.  
><strong>TT:<strong> Nice to see you again, no I'm fine, how are you?  
><strong>GA:<strong> Theres No Need To Point Out That I Am Being Brusque  
><strong>GA:<strong> Doing So Was Completely Intentional  
><strong>TT:<strong> You figure it's a good idea to start our eighteenth conversation by immediately asking me intimate personal details?  
><strong>GA:<strong> I Was Hoping We Could Talk About Several Items Of Cultural Import That Have Been Gnawing At Me  
><strong>GA:<strong> And That By Approaching The Subject Directly I Would Dispel Any Later Awkwardness Caused By The Nature Of My Questions  
><strong>GA:<strong> And Yours In Turn To Me  
><strong>GA:<strong> Also I Must Admit To A Certain Amount Of Cold Feet  
><strong>TT:<strong> And you chose to do this while I was engaged with two Giclopsi and a ten-storey Lesser Shoggoth wearing a foot-tall princess hat?  
><strong>GA:<strong> Essentially  
><strong>TT:<strong> Why?  
><strong>GA:<strong> Arent You Still Typing  
><strong>TT:<strong> ...  
><strong>TT:<strong> All right.  
><strong>TT:<strong> What did you want to ask?  
><strong>GA:<strong> Several Things If You Have The Time  
><strong>TT:<strong> I suppose. The Shoggoth's pustules keep bursting into Garnet Imps and their high defence is going to keep me occupied.  
><strong>GA:<strong> I Would Like To Think My Conversations Do Not Have To Be Accompanied By Macabre Busywork To Keep Your Interest At This Point  
><strong>TT:<strong> You're right, I apologize.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Its Fine  
><strong>GA:<strong> Several Of The Topics I Would Like To Broach Run The Risk Of Provoking Similar Insult  
><strong>GA:<strong> Though Such Insult Would Be Likewise Unintentional  
><strong>GA:<strong> So Long As We Keep In Mind That We Ask In The Name Of Mutual Understanding Theres Really No Harm Whatsoever  
><strong>GA:<strong> If Thats All Right  
><strong>TT:<strong> Questions like whether or not Egbert is my boyfriend.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Is That The Label You Would Use  
><strong>TT:<strong> No, no, wait.  
><strong>TT:<strong> Start over.  
><strong>TT:<strong> What is it, precisely, that you're trying to ask?  
><strong>GA:<strong> This Particular Question Pertains To My Confusion Over Your Team's Mutual Non-Biological Relationships  
><strong>GA:<strong> As I Understand You Have Known One Another For Quite Some Time  
><strong>TT:<strong> Yes, several years.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Precisely  
><strong>TT:<strong> ...  
><strong>GA:<strong> What  
><strong>TT:<strong> This appears to be one of those situations where I am unable to understand a high-concept thought because of a basic misunderstanding.  
><strong>TT:<strong> I'm going to answer your original question in hopes of illuminating this one.  
><strong>TT:<strong> If I had to ascribe a label, I would call John, Jade and Dave my closest friends.  
><strong>TT:<strong> Well, prior to the apocalypse, I suppose. The qualifier has lost some meaning.  
><strong>GA:<strong> So You Do Not Cast Romantic Aspirations On Any Of Them  
><strong>TT:<strong> No.  
><strong>TT:<strong> Did I or one of them give some impression to the contrary?  
><strong>GA:<strong> No Your Relationships Just Seem Too Tightly Bound By My Reading  
><strong>TT:<strong> Perhaps I should turn the question back on you?  
><strong>TT:<strong> How would you define your relationship with, say...  
><strong>TT:<strong> terminallyCapricious.  
><strong>GA:<strong> With Gamzee  
><strong>TT:<strong> Yes.  
><strong>TT:<strong> I gauge your relationship is not romantic, and that is the context in which I would use "friend."  
><strong>GA:<strong> Ah, I See Our Problem  
><strong>GA:<strong> Youre Correct In That My Relationship With Tc Isnt Romantic But I Would Not Call Him My Friend  
><strong>TT:<strong> Perhaps I've selected a bad example?  
><strong>GA:<strong> No  
><strong>GA:<strong> Well Yes Gamzee Is A Bad Example In That He Would Be Happy To Call All Of Us Friends But Allow Me To Explain  
><strong>GA:<strong> Trolls Do Not Form Friendships  
><strong>GA:<strong> It Is Not An Relationship We Form Naturally Except In A Few Genetic Aberrations  
><strong>GA:<strong> To Want Friends Is More A Form Of Troll Disease  
><strong>TT:<strong> No friends?  
><strong>TT:<strong> Ever?  
><strong>GA:<strong> That Is Correct  
><strong>TT:<strong> But  
><strong>GA:<strong> What Is It  
><strong>TT:<strong> I'm sorry, I am simply trying to absorb this.  
><strong>TT:<strong> If I may say so in the interest of scientific neutrality, I may be experiencing a reaction akin to yours on learning Humans only have a single romantic relationship.  
><strong>GA:<strong> You Find The Difference That Fundamental  
><strong>TT:<strong> Yes, certainly.  
><strong>TT:<strong> Friendship is a key relationship in human culture.  
><strong>TT:<strong> Alternating position with familial depending on specific culture and generation.  
><strong>TT:<strong> Neither of which you experience.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Correct  
><strong>TT:<strong> At all?  
><strong>GA:<strong> As I Said  
><strong>GA:<strong> No  
><strong>TT:<strong> Not even for your... and now I am at a loss of words... for your co-Sburb players?  
><strong>GA:<strong> Sgrub  
><strong>GA:<strong> And No  
><strong>GA:<strong> Well Technically Arachnidsgrip Was Once My Moirail As Far As Relationships Are Concerned  
><strong>GA:<strong> But I Fear That Romance Has Long Since Reached Its End  
><strong>TT:<strong> What word would you use to describe the rest?  
><strong>TT:<strong> I'm sorry, I've started my inquiries out of turn.  
><strong>GA:<strong> No I Understand  
><strong>GA:<strong> As For My Allies Karkat Remains My Leader And Thus Deserving Of Highest Respect  
><strong>GA:<strong> And I Suppose I Have A Lingering Sense Of Feudal Duty Towards Cuttlefishculler  
><strong>GA:<strong> But By And Large I Suppose I Consider The Others Merely Acquaintances Or Allies  
><strong>GA:<strong> Under Normal Circumstances Our Mutual Relation Would Break Off Once Our Mission  
><strong>GA:<strong> Or Insurrection  
><strong>GA:<strong> Had Ended  
><strong>TT:<strong> What you're going through is hardly normal circumstances.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Certainly But You Cant Expect Generations Of Social Structure To Collapse Immediately Under Unusual Weight  
><strong>GA:<strong> There May Be Some Trolls Capable Of Forming Friendships Such As Tc or Karkat But I Do Not Expect That Kind Of Change Within Our Generation It Would Be Too Strange  
><strong>GA:<strong> The Social Imperative Of Romantic Relationships Over Non Has Extended For Too Long For That  
><strong>TT:<strong> Does this have something to do with kismeses killing one another and limiting the pool of potential mates?  
><strong>GA:<strong> Yes Exactly  
><strong>GA:<strong> You Are Already Grasping It  
><strong>GA:<strong> If It Helps Your Visualization I Personally Have Never Felt Friend-Feelings Toward Another Troll  
><strong>TT:<strong> So your only interpersonal relationships are the formal ones you form for romantic purposes?  
><strong>GA:<strong> Essentially Though Formative Relationships Exist  
><strong>GA:<strong> Prospective Matesprits Moirails Etc  
><strong>TT:<strong> Yes, like the first few dates, or casual dating, on Earth.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Also Trial Relationships To Test Someone Of Interest For Multiple Quadrants But Thats A Mercenary Way To Put It  
><strong>GA:<strong> Thats More Just A Thing That Happens In Casual Association Than A Formal Type Of Relationship  
><strong>TT:<strong> I believe I understand though I admit to having a great deal of trouble wrapping my head around it.  
><strong>TT:<strong> But wait.  
><strong>TT:<strong> This is curious. You have several times insinuated that you hoped for a chance to extend our personal relationship in the future.  
><strong>TT:<strong> Which I reciprocated.  
><strong>TT:<strong> Am I now to understand that you said this with ulterior motives?  
><strong>GA:<strong> Pardon  
><strong>GA:<strong> Your Mood Appears Soured  
><strong>GA:<strong> Have I Provoked  
><strong>TT:<strong> Seeing as how all Troll relationships extend into romantic branches!  
><strong>GA:<strong> Well Certainly  
><strong>GA:<strong> Wait  
><strong>GA:<strong> I Believe Im Coming Understand The Source Of Your Anger  
><strong>TT:<strong> THAT is the  
><strong>TT:<strong> oiewrfw  
><strong>TT:<strong> THAT is the IMPS!  
><strong>GA:<strong> Well One Could Say Youre Somewhat Preoccupied  
><strong>TT:<strong> You've got a funny word for "dogpiled."  
><strong>GA:<strong> Heh **GA:** But All The Same You Made The Misassumption That My Proposal Was Intended Towards Friendship  
><strong>GA:<strong> I'm Very Sorry  
><strong>GA:<strong> That Was Never  
><strong>GA:<strong> Ah  
><strong>GA:<strong> My Intention  
><strong>GA:<strong> As I Truly Hope You Can Now See  
><strong>GA:<strong> Rose  
><strong>TT:<strong> I  
><strong>TT:<strong> Back.  
><strong>TT:<strong> Give me a moment.  
><strong>GA:<strong> I Understand  
><strong>GA:<strong> Your Screen Is Obscured  
><strong>TT:<strong> Yes but also to gather my thoguhtad.  
><strong>TT:<strong> *Thoughts.  
><strong>TT:<strong> Goodness, even the mic is gummed.  
><strong>TT:<strong> Why haven't I learned to carry a wiping cloth with me?  
><strong>TT:<strong> No, I feel I'm the one who should apologize.  
><strong>TT:<strong> We've both just been the victims of the misapprehensions you were worried about at the start of this conversation.  
><strong>TT:<strong> But I'm clearly the one more at fault.  
><strong>GA:<strong> How So  
><strong>TT:<strong> Beyond the immediate rude reaction?  
><strong>TT:<strong> For which I am quite ashamed and apologize.  
><strong>GA:<strong> No Offense Taken  
><strong>GA:<strong> I Did Say I Expected These Sorts Of Misunderstandings  
><strong>GA:<strong> By Making These Trips In This Conversation I Figure Well Avoid Making Them At A More Critical Moment  
><strong>TT:<strong> All the same. But more than that:  
><strong>TT:<strong> Your assessment that I could be a valid partner in a romantic partnership is far more valid than my baseless assessment that you could be a partner in a human friendship.  
><strong>TT:<strong> Pardon, that sounded callous.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Do You Think So  
><strong>TT:<strong> I do. I insinuated that you are not capable of friendship.  
><strong>GA:<strong> At The Risk Of Sounding Rude Through Repetition  
><strong>GA:<strong> I Am Not  
><strong>TT:<strong> So you say.  
><strong>TT:<strong> All the same: love, hate, restraint and support are things humans are capable of.  
><strong>TT:<strong> Damn, it's like I couldn't be approaching this more clinically.  
><strong>TT:<strong> Your... and now I can't say "friendship"... Our conversations over the past few days have meant a great deal to me.  
><strong>TT:<strong> If you were/are... uh...  
><strong>TT:<strong> honestly offering a chance at a relationship, I would be honoured to seek some more mature relationship with you in the future.  
><strong>TT:<strong> If you can give me time to settle naturally into a quadrant.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Of Course  
><strong>GA:<strong> I Had Never Assumed Otherwise The Process Is Quite Natural  
><strong>GA:<strong> In Truth I Was Afraid You Might Not Be Capable Of Some Quadrants In A Reverse Of Our Current Discussion  
><strong>TT:<strong> Possible. The actions seem valid but I can't vouch for the emotional response.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Id Hope You Dont Feel Pressured To Do It  
><strong>TT:<strong> Not at all. Your perspective on the relationship hasn't changed, and I haven't felt pressured before.  
><strong>GA:<strong> I Suppose  
><strong>GA:<strong> I Must Confess That This Is A Relief  
><strong>GA:<strong> You Had Frightened Me For A Moment  
><strong>TT:<strong> I'm sorry, it is not a very good new beginning for our yet-unqualified relationship.  
><strong>TT:<strong> My turn.  
><strong>TT:<strong> Earlier I used the word "honoured" to describe my feelings, but this seems so...  
><strong>TT:<strong> Emotionally detached?  
><strong>GA:<strong> Perhaps But Do You Really Feel A Need To Assign An Emotion At Present  
><strong>GA:<strong> After All If We Do Feel Close Enough To Form A Tighter Bond In The Future There Are Four Different Regions In Which To Form That Bond  
><strong>GA:<strong> One Of Which Varies Immensely In Nature Depending On The Rivalry It Coaches Or Is Coached By  
><strong>TT:<strong> I see. It felt it important to not be rude from the beginning, you understand.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Naturally  
><strong>GA:<strong> And If I May Ask You A Related Question In Turn  
><strong>TT:<strong> Go ahead.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Your Closest Friends  
><strong>GA:<strong> What Word Would You Use To Describe Your Feelings Towards Them  
><strong>TT:<strong> "Love"  
><strong>GA:<strong> Would You  
><strong>TT:<strong> It's one of the correct definition of the term, though I suppose the English language tends to use it to favour the romantic and the familial. The root emotion is at least correct.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Hm  
><strong>TT:<strong> What is it?  
><strong>GA:<strong> Im Just Taking In How Fundamental The Bond Is To You  
><strong>GA:<strong> If Thats The Word You Would Choose  
><strong>TT:<strong> You use it?  
><strong>GA:<strong> Not Unlike Yours It Encompasses The Lot  
><strong>GA:<strong> Yet Id Not Really Thought About It In Terms Of Friendship The Idea Is Completely Alien To Me  
><strong>TT:<strong> I have a similar misunderstanding of kismesissitude.  
><strong>TT:<strong> It is a hurdle we'll all overcome in the end.  
><strong>TT:<strong> I certainly hope none of our differences will strike as an obstacle. Especially not between you and I.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Yes  
><strong>GA:<strong> Thank You  
><strong>TT:<strong> I would like to ask you another question if that is all right, but I fear there will be a delay.  
><strong>TT:<strong> The Shoggoth's transparent core is about to burst.  
><strong>TT:<strong> And I am about to discover what horrible prize I will find admit the grist.  
><strong>TT:<strong> With any luck it will simply expel another Ogre but I have seen far worse from these pi?tas.  
><strong>GA:<strong> I Understand  
><strong>GA:<strong> I Once Discovered A Greater Rust Shoggoth Concealing A Lesser Containing A Gicops  
><strong>GA:<strong> I Insisted My Companions Bathe Afterwards From All The Mess  
><strong>GA:<strong> They Were Not Cooperative  
><strong>TT:<strong> I can only imagine the smell.  
><strong>GA:<strong> I Advise You Dont  
><strong>TT:<strong> Noted.  
><strong>TT:<strong> Here we go.  
><strong>TT:<strong> ...Damn.  
><strong>TT:<strong> Excuse me.  
><strong>GA:<strong> See You Soon

* * *

><p>"<em>roz wwe need to talk<em>"

Rose jumped a foot, and as she was on her bed at the time, she bounced for a moment in a way too comedic to match her shock. It took Rose a few seconds to realize that Eridan was not actually in her room with her, and came to her senses, furious. Of course he was not in the room: the doors were all fingerprint locked. But that was what she had heard. She immediately tried to put it out of mind.

Rose mustered her manners best she could. "Eridan, I'll grant you that it's dawn," Rose said, checking her clock. "...Precisely dawn. But I was up... very late, and... couldn't at least wait until breakfast?"

"No way, Roz!" he insisted. Rose squirmed. The auditory hallucination was very good: the undercurrent in his voice, even muffled, made it sound as though Eridan were almost sitting in her lap, which was more than she could stand in bed. She took to her feet as he continued. "I don't see why I should have to keep to your schedule when you could just as easily keep to mine."

"Charming," Rose muttered. Eridan had had all of two days to talk to her about her accidental ashen intervention, but of course he would come at the crack of dawn. Rose briefly considered changing out of her pyjamas: her once-purposefully, now-unintentionally mutilated Squiddles t-shirt paired with a set of old flannel bottoms. Eridan pounded again on the door, and Rose decided that any second spent not curbing him was just going to make things progressively worse and worse. She went to the door and hit the button to slide it up.

"What?" she demanded.

"Well, uh..." he said. He was fully dressed, with green flecks of drying sopor slime still stuck to the fabric, as though he had not even bothered to change in the morning. He had been completely taken aback by her prompt response, and began to mumble: "_kinda... embarasin_"

It might have only been the fact that he had interrupted a rare pleasant night's rest, but Rose was too cross to care. "You're here about Vriska," she said, trying not to sound like she was going to enjoy the taste as she chewed him out.

"Oh, you know?" he said, suddenly eager. "Wow, okay, then we can get right on it! Come on, we can talk strategy."

Rose shut the door on him. It rolled down on its rotors and Eridan, scrambling, caught it with his hand. His muscles flexed and the door halted with a metallic shriek that ran through the walls in every direction. Eridan then fought the howling grind as the gears pushed back against him, to no avail. Rose jammed the up button, and the whole affair slammed into the roof faster than it should have allowed.

"Eridan!" she snapped, not that it mattered as he did not seem at all perturbed. She really had to keep in mind that behind his whining, Eridan was just as top-echeladder and mature as Vriska.

"Rose, are you okay?" called Jade through their shared wall.

"I'm fine Jade," Rose called. "Go back to bed!"

But Jade did not: instead, she emerged from her room, already dressed, and poked her head in behind Eridan. "Are you sure?" she asked.

Rose lowered her eyes at Eridan. "I'm fine," she growled.

Jade shrugged and left at her own pace. As Rose watched her friend leave, Eridan attempted to cross into Rose room, and Rose had to slam a hand into the doorframe. "If the next words out of your mouth aren't 'I'll get Equius,' they had better be fast ones."

Seeing Rose enraged at him seemed to remind Eridan exactly why he had came, and a hand crept up to his mouth. He began to chew at his nails. "Roz, you've really got to see things my way here. _wwe're completely fuckin helpless don't you see? i can see it in her eyes, because I can see it... deep in my owwn._"

Rose lowered her guard, just slightly, surprised to see Eridan wide-eyed and trembling. "What are you talking about?"

"Vris! Can't you see we're five seconds from takin' each other's heads off? _wwell be sittin there eatin lunch nice an orderly and all of a sudden wwell be gougin at each others wwith our forks an..._"

"Oh, god..."

Eridan was not perturbed. "_...an then one of usll knock the other out and drown em in their own sopor!_"

Rose raised a hand for silence, checked her temple and then tried to restore order. "Why... why, if you were eating lunch, were you anywhere near a vat of sopor?"

"I dunno," Eridan admitted. "Maybe she invited me over to her room for lunch peace talks and then broke the truce!" Rose threw up her hands and walked away. Eridan followed. "You don't know her like I do, Roz, she's cunning like that!" he said, coming to a stop next to the wall where she displayed her drawings. Rose assumed he was taking a look. "Roz, I don't wanna kill Vris."

_Because that's the likely outcome,_ Rose thought, and she began to shuffle through her drawers to find a proper set of clothes.

"It's not just that we need every gun against Jack," Eridan said. "But she and I used to be pretty important to one another. I remember the day we met: _this fuckin landwweller just sailing up and sinking me like it wwas the simplest thing in the wworld and laughin like a bloody hellmurderin lusus beast_. That's when I knew we'd be destined for a rivalry of legends."

"And then she broke up with you," Rose summarized.

"Well... yeah. So?" He followed her in and rested a hand on the foot of her bed so he could lean to his comfort. "I figure with your brains we could work this back together until she and I are just in a nice, comfortable rivalry."

"Mm-hm," Rose muttered, as she picked out a top. "And Vriska agrees with this little plan of yours, of course."

"Eh?" Eridan casually pushed back his hair. "Nah, I've come to you first, Roz! I _respect_ you."

"Hmph. Delightful." Rose was not sure if she wanted his respect, but Eridan helped her with her feelings by refusing to stop talking when the getting was good.

"We just need a good plan," he said, "and then we jump her from behind! Bam! She'll never see me coming!"

"And now violent and creepy," Rose said, catching the look in Eridan's eyes. _And speaking of creepy..._ "Turn around, please," Rose said, and she gestured the same. Her other hand clutched her chosen outfit.

Eridan lowered his eyes at her. "Roz, I'm not interested in your gross Human bits, I'm here to talk to you about Mindfang."

"Look," Rose said, "if you want my advice, stop calling her that and then _turn around_."

To her relief, Eridan did as he had been twice told, though that did not stop him from complaining. "Look, it's not my fault I keep calling her by her FLARP name. I didn't know her real name for about a full fucking sweep, all right? That's a long time."

"Doesn't it bother you that you're turning to a 'gross Human' for advice?"

"Well," he said, shuffling his feet. "I sort of figure that she's a landdweller and so are you, and you've had more water in your past than the rest of them... 'cept Gam but can you imagine?"

"Flattered." Rose said, pulling on the rest of her purple dress to complete her rush. "I'm leaving. You, come," she added, grabbing his arm. At a loss at how to protect her door without being able to close it, she reached into her sylladex and packed it with a heavy stone artefact left over from the game. With a doubled pace, Rose then headed toward the transportalizer, past her Human friends' rooms. The four Humans were being housed in Aradia's quarters: the Dormitories. Apparently none of the Trolls had wanted a place stocked with beds and bathrooms, since they were going to sleep in their recouperacoons and no doubt bathed in something equally viscous. Since the robotic Troll-ghost had even less use for the place, she had granted four of the more spacious rooms to the Humans. It was because of this arrangement that Eridan had been able to reach Rose at all, since they could not lock the transportalizer with five separate people needing to use it.

"Isn't there some less destructive way you could tell Vriska you only... mildly dislike her?" Rose asked as they walked. "Am I putting that right?"

"Clearly you humans aren't romantics," Eridan said with a huff.

"Not really," she admitted, "but I have a vested interest in all of us surviving to meet Jack Noir. It's called 'not wanting to die.'"

"_roz i'm on my fuckin knees here_" Eridan said, and to her surprise he actually did kneel, dragging her to a stop like an anchor. "I really need this to keep myself sane, you don't know what it's like to sit back and realize you've done nothing but fuck over all your chances and... you're just walking away, aren't you?" He had to jog to catch up.

"The way I see it, Eridan," Rose said, not looking at him any more. "You and Vriska have both done a perfect job of alienating everyone else in your lives. You truly are made for one another, and _clearly_ you don't need my help. So, yes," she said, stepping onto the transportalizer. "I'm going to go with no.'"

Eridan screwed up his face, the frills at the sides of his face twitching. "No wh-"

Rose vanished into the air, and any smug joy she had over spiting Eridan evaporated as she was enwrapped in the shadow-frost of the void. She shut her eyes. Rose did not know how the transportalizers worked but she had the sneaking suspicion from repeat uses that it was connected to the furthest ring. Even as she tried to shut her mind, the voices spoke louder than ever, and the second of transportalization seemed to extend across minutes. To actually listen to the voices would be a poor idea. Rose knew that, perhaps better than the others, but she kept quiet about the Gods being there in the void. The transportalizers were used too often in everyone's average day, and besides, they were harmless. Still, Rose knew they were nearby: the Gods. But she also knew that these ones were just Middling Gods (they were too small to be Horrorterrors), and that they were only peripherally interested in her or the others. Her friends had already taken measures to deal with the Terrors: since the Noble Circle could only best reach them when they were asleep, that vulnerability had been tended to specifically. As to the Middling Gods, while Rose might have been vulnerable to them once upon a time, being burned by the true Horrors had a way of blunting one to the rest.

A few of them tried all the same. One promised power, another virility, and so on and so on, all in the eldritch tongue. Rose had long lost interest in that eager lot, and had begun to focus on the others: the ones she heard in the background, that were entirely disinterested in her and yet continued to speak. Perhaps they spoke to others, in other places yet unseen, or other times. Sometimes, Rose felt she heard her own name. Some of the voices belonged to mutterers. One of those mutterers always seemed to be reading out loud: some days scripture, others great, branching blocks of programming code. Others lectured. That day, one seduced, and one barked sharp orders. All to no reply.

In her fiction, Rose had once written about a great council-hall, filled with the world's wisest wizards, spell-weavers and magical beings alike, all gathered in a grand room of marble and glowing stones in aesthetic glory. There, acoustics had been perfectly arranged and magic and architecture combined to allow the fair distribution of knowledge to all (that had specifically allowed to attend). Here, in the Furthest Rim, Rose had found a Hall of the Learned, but had found it to be more like a smoking-room. The void seemed cramped: for its seemingly infinite size, to Rose it always felt like she had entered a place with no room to sit or stand. She felt the impression of a thousand pressing bodies, all clustered around her, but not noticing her presence. They spoke without turn or rule, smothering voice and breath unless you listened very close, and if they did not turn away. When she was with them, Rose encountered a sense like scent: the smell of people and animals, of oily hair and opium smoke, a sensation that pressed too close, and came from those towering above. Sometimes more than others, the sensation was truly pressing, and on those days, Rose was aware that she was nothing to those Gods. She was a child to their musings and an infant to their power, and though some voices offered great temptations day for day, they seemed to ignore her all at once.

There was a Troll there, today. A stranger.

Rose reappeared in the central hub and had to stumble to stand, and her ears popped. There, she rubbed at her eyes and dazedly observed the hub: twelve labelled transporters around a central hub. She pressed on to the central spoke, which led directly to the main lab those days, thanks to Sollux. Partially recovered, Rose hoped that speed might keep Eridan from tracking her, not that she had many other places to go. With any luck, he would get discouraged and go back home.

From the centre pad, Rose was taken again into the darkness, where she once again caught a glimpse of the strange Troll in the void. Rose stared at this stranger, but he or she did not seem to notice her until the last possible moment, when they locked eyes just as Rose was taken away. All Rose could make out was the Troll's characteristic candy-corn horns, which were moulded in a shape unlike those of her companions, and that Troll's eyes were strange, though Rose could not put her finger on why.

"Good morning," Kanaya called. It took Rose a moment to realize she had returned to reality, and that the speaker was to her left. Rose once again blinked away sleep. Transportalization always made her a little tired

Rose found the main lab as she and the others always left it: twelve computers in a square; horn pile in the southwest; incredibly satisfying burn marks to the southeast. The burns lay alongside Karkat and John's television and couch setup. As often, there was a four-horned programmer left happily forgotten in his chair to the north. West of the horn pile was the door to the rusty, poorly maintained hall that lead Outside, if one were inclined to go. Past John and Karkat's home theatre was the exit to the lab's cafeteria. Besides Sollux, Kanaya was only one other person in the lab at that poor hour. Rose shuffled over towards Kanaya, intending to sit down, but a glance at Kanaya's computer screen confirmed to Rose that she was not ready for work. "Gfm mrning," Rose muttered, to her friend as much as the prospect.

"I..." Kanaya stifled a laugh. "...don't know?"

"_Good morning_," Rose repeated, as she hopped up onto the desk beside Kanaya's computer. "Or evening, to you, as it were."

"Thank you, to you too." Kanaya flicked off her monitor and shifted over to the sketch pad set on her lap. There was no need for her to focus on Rose: they were both quite used to carrying on with work in concert with one of their talks.

"Did you sleep well?" Kanaya asked. "Or should I even ask?"

"Is it that bad?" Rose asked, touching at her face. She picked through her inventory, looking for a mirror she thought she had put in there once.

Kanaya shrugged in apology. "You normally wear _some_ makeup. What happened?"

"Eridan Ampora happened," Rose said with a sigh. She turned to look at Kanaya, perhaps for a reaction, and noticed that her friend looked far worse than her. Kanaya was clearly exhausted, though she worked on a new sketch, entirely unperturbed. Now up close, Rose could see green bloodshot spidering at the edges of her friend's eyes. "...You've been here since I left you last night, haven't you?"

"I have not," Kanaya insisted, to her sketch pad.

Rose lowered her eyes. "You have. You're a bigger mess than me. I hate to think you went without your dawn and evening showers. You tend to break down without them. I insist you take a moment." Rose was glad she gotten Kanaya's terms for the waking hours instead of her own: evening instead of morning. What was the point in a jibe if you got all the terms wrong?

"Oh, I do not 'break,'" Kanaya protested, but Rose was on her at once.

"There's no need to be hide it, I've been cast aside for your hygeine more than once. The last time you did it, you tried to distract me with one of your horrible novels."

"That's exaggerating," Kanaya said. She looked up just enough to catch Rose's eyes, and flourished her pencil in Rose's face.

Rose batted away the pencil. "It is not. Your novels are abysmal."

"A fair shade over yours. At least mine are legible," Kanaya replied.

Rose smiled condescendingly. "'Legible.' The word you're looking for is 'identical.'"

Kanaya glared back at Rose, before she gradually began to break into a laugh. "...Well, I didn't break last night, did I? I'll have you know that I used to spend my days covered in soil, so if regular bathing is a neurosis for you, Doctor Lalonde, I'm afraid I'm going to disappoint you. I'm too busy to bathe today, so I'm afraid you're not going to get anything from me but filth and rank for the rest of the day." She swept her pencil free of Rose's grip and tapped her on the nose with the rounded end.

Rose harrumphed. "Well if we're done playing silly games: what's keeping you so busy?" Behind her, Rose head the transportalizer work as Tavros entered the room and headed to his computer.

"Sketching," Kanaya said. Pretending she was looking over at Tavros, Kanaya hovered over her pad.

"May I see?" Rose asked.

Kanaya continued to huddle. "...One is for you."

That was irregular. Given the Trolls' lack of interest, Kanaya tended not to sketch anything 'for' anyone, and her designs for Rose had come to a halt some time after the Humans had arrived. Rose had not even realized it had stopped, as her day-to-day interactions with Kanaya had gradually erased the impressions she had formed of her friend when they were still in different sessions. "Been a while," Rose said, trying not to sound surprised. "What changed?"

Kanaya shrugged it off. "Full of ideas last night, I suppose." She shuffled about on her chair, until she was sitting just in front of Rose, facing away. The upturned page on the pad was incomplete, but Kanaya flipped back a few pages, and Rose saw something very unusual pass her by.

"Wait, hold on," Rose said. Kanaya stopped, and the pad came to rest on one of the strange pages. Rose did not know what to make of it. It was a rough map of a cave system, started roughly with a purple coloured pencil, before the project had taken on a life of its own and Kanaya attacked it with the proper tools. Much of it had been coloured in, but where those patches of colour appeared seemed entirely random. Rose leaned closer over Kanaya's shoulder, careful not to get too close to the point of her friend's straight horn, and looked at the many details. "...Taking up FLARP?" she asked.

"No, not at all," Kanaya said. "...Though I suppose some of them might be difficult and attempt to it for their games all the same. No, this is a..." Kanaya reached back and flipped to the next page in the series: the centre of the map, with previous page showing only the west. On the centre page, Rose noticed a series of specific machines detailed on the nearby key, though Rose could not make out their function, as Kanaya had labelled them in the Alternian alphabet. In the centre of the room was a platform of sorts, north of which lay a vat filled with a rainbow liquid.

"What do you think?" Kanaya asked. She flipped up the page to show the eastern section, which was not unlike the west, although Rose noticed a small set of dormitories. "...It's a spawning cavern," Kanaya explained, after giving Rose ample opportunity to answer. "For the Matriorb, to begin," Kanaya said. She then tapped her chest, which had become the group's code for "in my inventory." "The rest would be expanded to support standard breeding after she had grown."

Kanaya tapped an otherwise innocuous chamber on the eastern map, surrounded by smaller rooms: "This is the Drones' subcomplex." Tavros jumped at the sound of the word 'Drone.' According to Kanaya, the dormitory was: "For supervisors. Not standard for a long time, but necessary with the first Mother Grub being otherwise undefended." She flipped back to west. "Cocooning caves, and the wriggling routes. They're all specifically designed to go uphill, so the lines indicate height: grubs don't have much of an idea what's going on at that point in their lives, but they naturally go uphill." And on the central map: "Storage. That's food storage specifically. Communications, armoury, Dr..." Kanaya looked up at Tavros, lowered her voice and said: "Drone armoury. And that's bucket storage and the Drone preparation and deployment rooms." Kanaya tapped her pencil against her chin. "...Do you think there's still any sense in having official buckets? I never gave it much thought, but thinking about it last night, I suppose people could provide their-uh..."

Rose tried to keep a straight face as Kanaya's professional decorum burned away after so little focus on the B-topic. "I suppose they could," Rose said. "I can't say I've given it any thought all. Really, Kanaya, this is all a wonderful step in the direction that returns you to your culture's history of coerced breeding. I don't know what to say." Kanaya glared at her. "My point being: is it really necessary to have any Drones at all? Or at least the violent kind. It struck me as an Imperial adjustment to the natural process."

"We're not certain about that," Kanaya admitted. "Our history has habit of smelling like matches and gasoline, if you follow me."

"Quite."

"As for your question," Kanaya continued, "Feferi and Karkat _did_ suggest some ideas along those lines, but I'll have to talk to them." She scribbled a note in a corner as a reminder. "For the time being, I figured recreating a functional old-style breeding cave in draft would be a good first step."

"That seems reasonable," Rose said. She peered over the map another time. "And this," Rose said, pointing to the central chamber, "is her room."

"Exactly," Kanaya said, and she explained a few of the devices. Rose only really followed that the platform was where the baby Trolls were initially laid, before the mother grub would personally butt them off toward the halls, like a bird operating uphill. "Which is why this edge of the platform, nearest the service tunnels, is walled," Kanaya said. After a moment, she pointed to the vat: "And if you're too polite to say so, I'd like to say say that this is the nicest genetic material I've ever drawn."

Rose laughed. "I'm not sure so sure I'm qualified to comment on that. But sarcasm aside-"

"For once," Kanaya interrupted.

"Yes. But honestly: this seems like a wonderful start. You've really gotten into this. I'm afraid I don't much understand the logistics beyond most of the process, but I'd trust you to do it right over anyone else."

"Hm, yes," Kanaya said. Rose was glad to see her press on professionally in spite of the praise: it was behaviour she could empathize with. "Well, I'm going to have to look it up again to be sure. Quadruple check. With additional beta readers, I think," she said, pointing to Rose, "each less informed about our breeding process than the last."

"Dave and Eridan will be thrilled."

"As for the serious research..." Kanaya pointed to Sollux. Rose understood. Their computers still had access to the Alternian equivalent of the Internet, not to mention their hacked connection to the Human internet in turn. "Sollux says we'll have the whole archives in a week or so."

Sollux raised a hand from his typing in acknowledgement. As Rose looked up to see it, she saw that they were no longer alone. Aradia was home, but had not settled straight to her desk as was her usual routine. Instead, she rifled through the pile of junk and spare parts that lay on Equius' desk. Tavros was sitting in front of a word processor, lost in thought, and John waved to Rose from the couch. He even giggled at her surprise in seeing him, as he must have passed her by without her noticing. Feferi had also arrived: in fact, she had already been to the cafeteria and back, and offered her boyfriend some of her kippers.

"Are you going to be able to make most of these things?" Rose asked Kanaya, to return to the subject at hand.

"I think so," she admitted. "Though I may be hedging a lot on the universal magic of alchemy, and it may be necessary to improvise. I have a few ideas. I was going to estimate some grist costs as well," Kanaya said, pointing to some figures scratched below the key and scale, "but a creative mood isn't really a mathematical one."

"It's great, Kanaya," Rose praised. "You've really got a handle on this. If I could ask, are even the wriggling caverns made to some specification? They just look natural."

Kanaya nodded. "You'd be surprised what's necessary."

Rose approached her intended topic with some caution: "Is it meant to... pardon me, prune the grubs?"

Kanaya turned back to the western map. "Not quite. The cocooning chambers are intentionally undersized, that would count, but a lot of it is actually generous. These areas pool water," she said, pointing to certain slight bulges just off the paths. "There are also a few discouragements to keep the grubs from climbing back for any reason, so they don't grow up in the tunnels. Some of them would. ...They're not very bright, but they want to survive, same as anyone."

"Mm." Rose tried to picture the whole process, putting herself in the shoes of a Troll grub. It was not hard to picture a little pink worm crawling through the tunnels, or to picture her and little blue, green and red worms gurgling at one another by a watering hole before finding a place to cocoon. She wondered if any of them might have even tried to fight for access. "Kanaya? Did you ever wonder what it would be like? Crawling from the caves? As I understand it, you all sort of just landed nearby, so maybe I shouldn't be asking, but..."

Kanaya returned a nervous laugh. "I'm not so sure. After all we've been through, how hard could it have been?"

Rose laughed as well, but it was almost out of sympathy. Kanaya sounded truly disappointed and Rose reached out a hand to Kanaya's shoulder in apology. "Too bad?" she asked. Kanaya looked surprised that Rose had noticed.

"It just seems like we... like I was left out of a fundamental Troll activity?" Kanaya suggested. She shook her head, and refused to meet Rose's eyes. "It's stupid," she said, but still she touched Rose's hand lightly with her own in thanks. When she released it, it was to turn back the page on her pad, revealing a sketch of a generic Troll woman wearing what looked like a traditional Indian outfit: Rose wondered if it was truly Indian, plucked from the internet, or some Troll equivalent.

"You've been busy," Rose said, noting the colour.

"Heh. Yes, well-"

"Aradia!" John called, out of nowhere. Rose and Kanaya both looked up, and saw that Aradia had stopped just a few steps from the transportalizer. Rose could not help but note that Equius' remaining spare parts had been neatly rearranged, apparently sorted by accumulation of rust. John continued: "Do you know if Dave's in?"

Feferi, deciding this exchange was not interesting, returned to her meal, though Sollux had perked up to listen as soon as John had mentioned Dave. Rose could easily tell: he was simply a very poor bluff, and his attempt to hide that he was listening made him more obvious than if he had just sat back. "It's just..." John said, "I know you two hang out a lot." John was also a poor liar, but Rose was not surprised to hear him all but shout that he knew about Aradia and Dave's work. Karkat knew about them and Karkat told John everything, some of it even in a normal speaking voice. Rose did her best to keep her own composure.

"I left him in the hall over an hour ago," Aradia replied. "Judging by his indirect comments-" John nodded that he knew what she meant, "-I believe he headed up to Terezi's." Aradia's response was synthesized, out of a voice box positioned somewhere beyond her meticulously constructed, realistic mouth. Rose knew that Aradia was capable of giving her voice emotion, but then, as more often than not, she simply did not bother. It was strange to Rose: Rose could not quite forget the conversation she had had during the game, when a frustrated apocalypseArisen had tried to warn her off of the elder gods. She had not seen any such display of life from Aradia ever since. Aradia continued: "Should I pass him a message if I see him?"

John looked disappointed. "Yeah, I guess... Actually, no, I don't have anything. Just tell him I say hi."

Aradia nodded and stepped on to the platform. There, she tossed a look over toward Sollux, who dropped his poor bluff and had hunched back over his keyboard. Rose was not certain, but she thought she heard Aradia simulate what might have been a sigh, before it was cut off by transportalization.

Kanaya had noticed as well, and turned to meet Rose's eye. "_None Of Our Business_" she said.

"I'm just curious," Rose said. She would not have admitted unless directly asked, but her mind was already filled with a criss-cross of emotional analyses.

Kanaya seemed to have realized it without asking. "You're dangerous when you're curious," she observed. Beyond her, John headed out through the transportalizer on his own business. "Don't force me to remind you that people here don't like you prying into their heads."

"Are you going to stop me?" Rose asked. "Stop me from having nice, casual, perfectly harmless conversations?"

"...No," Kanaya said, almost as an afterthought. "...You'll behave, because you know if you start poking where you don't belong," Kanaya prodded at her with the pencil again, "You might end up with another Vriska and Eridan situation on your hands."

"Ouch. All right," Rose said. "I'll behave. _This_ time." Kanaya grunted and turned back to her page. As Kanaya worked, tongue stuck to her upper lip, and odd idea occurred to Rose. "...Did you just... moirail-flirt with me?"

"Ah..." Kanaya lifted her coloured pencil from the page. "I..."

"You did!"

Kanaya smiled, as if to herself rather than Rose. "I... suppose I did. It wasn't quite..." She shrugged. "Well." She stopped there, as though content to let her statement rest. The pause that followed quickly turned awkward. Rose could not help but turn her attention to other things and noticed that Feferi was eavesdropping on them now, not unlike her boyfriend had been before. Rose wished she had something for Feferi to overhear. Despite having spent a month together - was 'despite' even the right word? - Rose and Kanaya had not yet come to settle into a quadrant, or even so much as made a move. Rose wished she had said something: returned the sentiment, or deflect it politely, but all she had to offer was petty silence.

But the moment had passed. Kanaya helped ease them both out of the awkward stall by talking about the outfit she had drawn, and some of the others the preceded it. It helped. The outfits were all up to Kanaya's usual standard: where Kanaya's sketches were unable to get her ideas across, she was more than able to convey the details with her description. After some time had passed, she turned back so a very different page.

"Oh!" Rose said, almost a gasp. "...I see."

The sketch was of her - or at least, it had become her over time. It matched Kanaya's standard model, one Rose strongly suspected was based on herself with generic, straight horns. But this time, before any horns had been added, Kanaya had changed her mind and drawn in blonde hair and quick, purple eyes. She had saved her detail work for the dress Rose's sketch was wearing, which not only caught Rose's eye for design, but for its brilliant orange-yellow colour.

"It's an idea I got a few nights ago," Kanaya said, "when Jade brought out her starlit dress. The Three in the Morning."

"I remember!" Rose said. "Equius and his high society dance comment. Vriska and her crack about formal wear."

"Vriska has _plenty_ of formal wear," Kanaya said with a huff. "Though I'll admit it would need resizing that she'll have to do herself. But that's beside the point. I was thinking about this dress last night, and I began to think... I could reverse the design on Jade's dress! Why not bring alchemy into the process, as a unique tool instead of a time saver?" Rose laughed, as 'time saver' was generous for Kanaya: Kanaya had already ranted to Rose about the others using the alchemiter to replace or even avoid washing their clothes. "Quiet. So after some consideration, the idea came to me that I could make you, a..." Kanaya looked up to Rose, and handed her the pad for examination. "...A sun. For the Seer of Light."

"It sounds wonderful," Rose said, perfectly honest. Kanaya's idea was appealing. Perhaps it was her association with Light, but Rose found Jade's surreal dress quite interesting. "If you're willing to spend the time, and it's all right with Jade. I'm glad I came to mind."

"No trouble," Kanaya said, flattered. Rose flipped the page, where she found a few quick, functional sketches that had been prepared of the same garment at different angles. "No trouble at all, really. No one lets me do anything with their clothes. If I come up with a design that doesn't look good on me, it's really just into the trash."

"Well then!" Rose said. "I'm almost sorry I'm not a guy. Not that you couldn't fit me for a suit, I just don't know if I'm interested."

"Consider it!" Kanaya said. Rose could almost see her planning, not unlike Kanaya must have seen her mind going at Aradia's mysterious sigh. "It would still fit you differently than one of the boys, of course, but there's a certain appeal," Kanaya said. She began to flip back several pages. "Have you ever seen a male Troll uniform?"

"Military?" Rose asked. "I haven't seen either."

"There are quite a few differences based on form I could point out, but more interestingly, there are a touches few that aren't. They're touches that I think would look just as good on a woman, and vice versa. Take a look-"

Kanaya was cut off by the sound of something not unlike that of a wrecking ball, coming from the east side of the room. As they turned to look, Tavros' chair rolled to a slow stop beside them. Its former occupant remained in front of his computer, albeit now on his back, with one robotic foot planted flat on the ground and the other fully extended and jammed up through the hole it had made in his desk.

"Tavros, are you all right?" Feferi called from the other side of the room.

"Fine!" he said, pushing himself up. "Just... _jUST YAWNING,_ You know."

Feferi got to her feet. "Rose, could you get me the chair?" she asked as she got to Tavros' side. Rose did as she was asked, Kanaya choosing to stay behind. Rose pushed over the chair, checked that Tavros was all right, and then joined Feferi in investigating his stuck foot. As Feferi had presumably done before her, Rose gave the foot a light push.

"Really in there," she observed. Twisting or forcing it proved no more effective.

"It is!" Feferi said. "Honestly Tavros, how do you manage to flounder so much with just a yawn?"

"Well," said Tavros, who was having even more trouble getting comfortable on the ground with two people hovering over him, "the legs just act funny sometimes, and right now, they think they're, uh, kicking."

"Right now?" Feferi groaned. "You mean they're still pushing?"

"I think it might be," Rose said. "It's just fully extended right now." She stepped over to a new position. In doing so, she brushed Tavros' other foot and discovered that it, too, would not budge. "...Is this one magnetized to the ground?"

Feferi frowned at both feet, and then levelled her gaze on the upper, drew her trident and smacked it hard across the toe. The force was resounding, a very impressive blow that more than knocked the foot free, only for it to ram itself roughly back into position.

Feferi cuffed the foot again with her trident. "Ugh! Sollux!"

"Yeah?"

"Tell Equius that Tavros needs him right now!" said Feferi, regal and princess-like even to a computer screen. "Tell him he needs to finish what he starts for once!"

"He's not going to listen to me," Sollux lisped in reply.

Through her teeth, Feferi added: "Tell him I asked nicely."

"He's not going to listen to you either," Sollux pointed out.

Feferi seemed to be well aware, as she muttered something under her breath before returning to Tavros with a smile. Taking a short side trip to his chair, she fiddled with its back cushion until it came loose. With Rose's help, they were able to help Tavros use it as a sort of pillow as opposed to the bare floor. The legs did not allow much better, though they tried.

"I think I have a few things from the game that might work," Feferi said after a moment. "Sollux, can I pick through your room?" she asked, having returned to her chair.

"You know, FF, we could probably just blast through to the legs," Sollux suggested.

"I, uh, would not prefer that, if that's all right," Tavros protested.

"Fine, but it's gonna take way longer!" Sollux cautioned. He turned back to his computer and then added: "Done."

"_T)(ank you!_" Feferi said, and she kissed Sollux on the head. "Did the routing thing work?" she asked, regarding something they must have discussed previously.

"No," Sollux muttered. "Never." He continued to type.

"You'll get it," Feferi said, with a touch on his shoulder. "In just a few days, I think, Kanaya," she added over her shoulder. Sollux just grunted. Feferi then picked up her plate of fish and heading to the platform. She smiled down at Tavros. "Rose will keep you company for a bit, Tavros!"

"I, uh, would appreciate that, if that would be all right," Tavros said to Rose, once Feferi had left. "The ceiling stopped wasn't really entertaining the last time that, you know, that, my legs acted up,"

"I understand," Rose said, taking a glance in that direction. Across the room, Kanaya laughed silently and waved goodbye to her for the time. "I need to speak to Equius, myself. Eridan did a number on my door."

"_oH,,, uH, dID HE,_" As anyone familiar with him would have expected, Tavros's eyes flicked just off of meeting Rose's. "I figured he might. _nOT THE BREAKING YOUR DOOR PART, i MEAN JUST TALKING TO YOU,_ He and Vriska haven't been talking about anything else for the past two days."

"Vriska too?" Rose said with a sigh. She dropped to the floor alongside of Tavros.

"Yeah. _wELL, nOT TO EACH OTHER'S FACES,_ just to me. In fact, if they weren't complaining about you, I'd figure they were trying to make me their auspistice."

Rose laughed bitterly. "Well, maybe you should volunteer, because I just told Eridan I'm not doing it."

"Really?"

"Yeah," she said. "I mean, I figure Vriska will come bother me about it on her own terms but no is still no."

"Wow, that's-!" Tavros said, and almost lurched up with excitement, though this was ultimately impossible. "That's good news," he said.

_Hm?_ Rose's interest piqued. "You... don't really care if your friends turn violent?"

"No, that's not it," Tavros said. He settled his hands together on his lap. At the right angle, he would have almost looked as though he were comfortable, if one tried to ignore his angle to the floor. "I think they're going to calm down again as soon as they see there's no relationship in it. It was sort of getting in the way of other things."

"That makes sense," Rose said, at little disappointed that she was not plumbing some new depth of Troll social psychology. "And I know what you mean. New relationships can really put a wall in the middle of old ones, even if they're working out." She was thinking specifically of Terezi and Dave's first few days together, until Dave and Aradia had picked up their grim task, but they were just the stand out example among her friends. She had to admit, the time she spent with her own patron Troll was probably cutting out John and Jade. She would have to think about that. "Do you think they'll drop it?" she asked.

"Maybe. I don't know. That's not... really what I'm concerned about, though."

"What is it, then?" she asked, and watched as he winced away, his head slowly tipping away from her. "Tavros."

"It's... _iT'S,_ well..." Tavros' face splotched over brownish-orange, an endearing blush that nevertheless did nothing for his complexion. He opened his mouth to give an answer, but to Rose's surprise nothing, not even the tiniest whisper or gasp of air, actually came past his lips as he moved them.

"Tavros," Rose repeated, crossing her own arms.

She had to lean in to hear him, and so had to ask him to repeat himself, which only made him blush harder. He said: "I was wondering. Since you're not involved, uh, with them, I... was hoping you might be able to give me some relationship advice."

"You want me to give you relationship advice?" Rose was surprised that she had managed to contain herself to a whisper. "Really?" She lowered her voice at last. "I might not be very good for this, Tavros. I mean, I've been single my whole life, I don't even know how to... well... _ask_."

"Well, i- it's- it's not a very big thing. Not that I wouldn't _consider_ you for big things, but that's not the point right now, because I don't have any big things, and it's not really about asking, but it's sort of about a relationship that I'm already, sort of, _in_, except maybe not and that's the issue and it's a matespritship and I don't really know who to talk to. I mean, I can't really talk to Karkat and... _wOW, i HOPE ME BEING IN A RELATIONSHIP ISN'T THAT SURPRISING TO YOU, bECAUSE YOU LOOK, sURPRISED, rOSE,_" Tavros face ran the gamut as he spoke, and he looking as glum as ever by the time he was finished.

"No, no, no," Rose said, dropping her hand to better show her smile, and trying to hide her embarrassment. "You've got me all wrong, I'm just..." She searched her memory, but finding only irony, she finished with a sarcastic lilt: "...I'm honoured."

"Really?" It was Tavros' turn to be surprised. His smile, which Rose had not seen much since they had met, was actually quite bright.

"So long as you feel it won't hurt to go with a member of another species and culture," Rose said, deliberately trying to curb her sarcasm, yet still aware she was failing. "Well, if you're willing to talk, perhaps you should fill me in first. Who are we talking about? What kind of matespritship? Is there an issue or are you asking in general?"

Tavros' face gradually began to brighten. "Well, I think so. I mean, we've gone Outside twice already, and I really like him. But we haven't talked much about it lately, and I didn't know if it was me, or maybe he wasn't interested any more? Because it was only twice. So I didn't think I would ask and then I tried and then it looked like I wouldn't be able to."

"Hm," Rose set a hand on her chin. Tavros had a good point. She might understand the Troll's relationships in the macro but the closer she got the less felt she could really master. She agreed: even on Human terms she was hardly going to call two dates a commitment. By many standards, Tavros' would-be matesprit's behaviour might not even be seen as impolite. Of course, if he was wrong, as he was obviously hoping, there was still a chance for more. "Well, I can see why you're all worried. Who are we talking about, Tavros? What's this issue about not being able to talk all of a sudden?"

But Tavros did not answer. Rose turned around and discovered that while she had been speaking, Vriska had appeared in the middle of the room. She looked straight at them, her wry smile thinning out.

"Goober," she greeted Tavros, barely seeming to notice his predicament. And then Rose: "Bitch."

"Oh good," Rose said. "Someone doesn't want to talk to me. I was becoming concerned."

"_mORNING VRISKA,_" Tavros said with a shrunken nod. Vriska's frown deepened, but seeing nothing on which she could immediately intrude, she summoned an eight-ball from her sylladex and began to toss it to herself as she went to her computer. Luckily for Rose, Vriska was largely cut off from her and Tavros by John and Karkat's movie nook, but that did not stop Vriska from tossing looks at them from her web from time to time.

Rose took quick stock of the situation, which now included Tavros' complete silence. "She... doesn't like the idea of you dating this guy, does she?" Tavros, who looked petrified, coughed in response. "Was that a yes or a no?"

Tavros reached up to his throat and rubbed it, as though it hurt to speak, and whispered. "_uH,,, nO, nO, sHE DOESN'T LIKE HIM AT,,, aT ALL,_"

Rose tented her fingers at first. She thought over the situation and how to work around Vriska, when an independent part of her mind hit on a conclusion and stopped the rest of her train of thought outright. Lazily, her eyes slid from Tavros to Vriska and then to her favourite burn mark, and claustrophobia closed in. _...It seems my maze is just a labyrinth,_ Rose rued, clenching and unclenching a fist, _and so I'm back where I began._

"That's what she was yelling at you about two days ago, wasn't it?" Rose whispered. Tavros nodded slowly. "She came in early and caught you two... talking about another date." Tavros nodded. Rose knew this was not exactly polite but she had to ask: "Why Eridan, Tavros?"

"Well I don't really know," he said. "Have you ever heard him talking about his relationships?" Tavros smiled. "He's so intense."

"Yeah," Rose said, looking at her hands, nodding meaninglessly. "Yeah, that's exactly the word I'd use."

"And we were talking a week or so ago, and he had a... uh... philosophical conversation with Gamzee." Tavros caught Rose's eye with his, and pantomimed raising an aluminum tray to his lips. "Later Gamzee went to the load gaper, and Eridan told me he figured that we were all land-dwellers now because there just isn't any water any more? And least I think that's what he said. Slurring a bit. And he was... really upset. So I was talking to him and told him how nice the land is, really. And I asked if that helped and he looked really sad and said, 'tAVV, YOURE THE ONLY ONE WWHO EVVEN BOTHERED TO CHEER ME UP,'"

Tavros' impression was terrible - some of the Trolls were capable of much better - but Rose was deeply touched: very deeply, under miles of quickly accumulating _oh-no-not-again_. Tavros continued his story in the happiest tone Rose had heard him use in a while: "So we talked for a long time and two days later he came and asked me if I wanted to take a walk Outside, and I didn't really realize what he meant at first. So I said I couldn't because of my legs and he just looked so sad all of a sudden that I had to think '_wAIT, wHAT DOES THIS MEAN,_' and-"

"Tav," Rose said, putting an arm on his shoulder, and then immediately: "T-Tavros! I'm sorry, I think I need..." Rose tried to be direct: it felt like the only way she was going to be able to say anything and still stay the hell away from Eridan. Rose saw Vriska watching them again, eyes lowered, and Rose dropped her hand. "I have to-"

"Got it!" It was Feferi. Rose kept from sighing in relief, partially because it seemed rude, but more because Feferi was now carrying some kind of hideous, brain-prototyped welding torch. "...Don't ask," she pleaded.

Tavros seemed to have no intention of asking: he simply said "_,,,uHH,,,_" and forgot to say more. Rose gave the awful-looking device another look. She supposed she was willing to give it a try. After all, Equius would need Tavros freed from the table to get to work, right?

And then Vriska cleared her throat. Oh, Rose did not like that sound one little bit. "May I help you two with this stupid foot thing," Vriska asked, "or are you just going to ignore me and weld his legs to the table? 'Oh, no way _Vriska_ could help, gog forbid.'"

Rose swallowed hard at this greeting-cum-threat, and noticed Kanaya look up from her sketching. Rose looked to Tavros, who shrugged nervously, and she sighed. "Vriska," she said, "could you help us with Tavros' 'foot thing'?"

"I'd love to, Blondie." Vriska got to her feet and prowled over to Tavros and Rose. Carefully, she lowered herself to the ground and lightly tested Tavros' magnetized foot, and then stood and thumped the other, to no effect. Satisfied, Vriska stroked her chin and began to pace, first to one side of the desk, nearest the corner and cafeteria exit, and then to the opposite. There, she leaned down and shoved the entire desk, computers and all, an inch up onto the adjacent desk. Nepeta's mouse began escaping downhill.

"No need to break all our stuff!" she said, as though she were beign helpful. "And stand back," she ordered, shaking out her arms. "Not you," she added to Rose, who she grabbed by the head. "What, do you want me to blow his feet off?"

"That's more or less not the idea," Rose said, indignant. "I-arrgh!"

A flash of colour cut across Rose's vision, first bright and blinding, then settling into an afterimage: the outline of a hand with coin in palm, the sign of the Thief. Vriska shoved Rose to free her, leaving her feel cold - stunningly cold - at her core.

"Vriska!" Kanaya shouted from her seat.

Even though she somehow knew it would be of no consequence again the supernatural chill, Rose clutched her arms across her chest. "B-borrowing some Light, are we?"

Vriska tried her best to look hurt. "You did just say we didn't want to blow him up, didn't we?" With a flourish, Vriska tossed something out of her inventory and into the air. She caught whatever it was with similar showmanship, and then displayed them to the others: two hand-carved bone spheres, one white and one black.

"Those are... dice?" Feferi asked.

Vriska simply tapped Rose's temple with the back of her free hand. "Now scoot," she said. Wavering to her feet, Rose did as she was told. Feferi met her there, ready to help her stand.

Vriska began to circle Tavros, stepping over his leg at one point. As she attempted to pass behind him, she found herself face-to-face with Kanaya, her fists at the ready.

"That was totally unnecessary," Kanaya growled, pointing to Rose.

Vriska soured to hear it, at least at first, but a glance from Kanaya to Rose seemed to brighten her mood in its usual ill way. In reply, Vriska raised a finger from her spare hand and set it to Kanaya's lips for silence. She pushed back gently, and Kanaya was forced to retreat a step.

Vriska began juggle the two dice to herself, tossing one from palm to fingers and letting the other drop back to palm. "You remember helping me find the **Taijitu Pair**, don't you Tavros? _We had a lot of fuuuuuuuuun picking them up._" She squatted next to him, the white die between her fingers.

To Rose's astonishment, Tavros actually broke eye contact with Vriska as if without fear of repercussions. "Despite her, uh, mysterious tone, I actually did think that that was a lot of..." Vriska stood up - the sudden motion, Tavros did find startling. "...fun."

"You have more than one set of dice?" Feferi asked. Rose had been wondering the same.

Kanaya huffed. "She has all the dice."

"_I have allllllll the dice,_ Kanaya, say it right." Vriska pouted. "You used to be so good at it." Vriska tossed the white die to her opposite hand. "All the sets from one to nine. Took a long time! Most of them are useless, though. I already started with the best!" She grinned at Feferi, and again held up the white. "This is the only one that can heal, though. Sort of."

Tavros piped up. "We found it after Vriska had, uh, given up on getting past Level 99, so we went after her Denizen."

"Argh, and you can't! It just stops right there, so stupid! I double-checked, like, four times!" Vriska complained. "Gog, I would have _died_ for that! But I guess I only get to die for Troll Casper's shits and giggles. Hmph. The point is, these d2s used to belong to Scorpio."

"Those are d2s?" Sollux asked about the spheres, having apparently overheard.

Rose had what she felt was a more important question. "...Your Denizen was named 'Scorpio'?"

Vriska grinned. "Giant eight-tailed scorpion."

Sollux raised his voice. "Those are _d2s_?"

"Yeah, yeah, keep your pants on!" Vriska said with a wave of her arm. "It's like... good decision, bad decision... balance of the universe... you know! Lighty stuff!" She rolled the dice in one hand. "Chitinous blowhard rambled on and on about it, the _power of fate_ versus..." Vriska grinned, and suddenly adopted and overwrought, theatrical tone: "_inevita8le, perf8ct st8gnation!_"

To Rose's surprise, the other Trolls laughed, save for Kanaya.

"Yours too?" Feferi asked. "Ugh, the glubbing Denizens! Mine just kept going and _going_ about how we, uh... '_)(ave no )(ope_'... and that I was '_S)(-ELLFIS)( LITTL-E C)(-EAT-ER!_' and... Sollux, what was the 'stagnation' thing?"

Sollux pondered for a moment. "Wasn't it... something about all of the Denizens living forever in '_TH-E GRAND C-EL-E2TIAL ORD-ER OF 2TAGNATION!_'? Something like that?" His impression would have been an excellent match for Feferi's vocal tone, if not for his lisp.

Feferi snapped her fingers. "And yours was... '_the healiing pau2e of 2tagnatiion_' Do they all use that exact word?"

Sollux chuckled. "Repetitive bullshit. Give me five minutes with their code, we'll straighten it right out."

Given everyone else's good mood, Kanaya seemed to lighten a touch. Trying to smile to Rose, she noticed her friend's confusion. "Did your Denizens not follow this script?"

Rose shook her head. This was all new information to her.

"The point is..." Vriska said, taking everyone's attention back to where she no doubt felt it mattered. "The point is: these dice inflict and cure status conditions on players. And like we found out with my arm in the game, Sgrub treats this kind of behaviour," she tapped the foot, "like 'Confusion.' Of course, the last time I rolled these dice, Gamzee turned into a scarecrow for three days."

"_You_ did that?" Feferi exclaimed. "I mean, he was pretty happy about it but it took forever to-"

"Hey! The _dice_ did that!" Vriska insisted. "And this time..." she said, ruffling Rose's hair, "they won't!"

And before anyone could stop her, Vriska tossed the two so-called dice, which rolled up to Tavros' legs and gently _click_ed away. Slowly, even reliably, they began to slow. Though Rose could see no difference between them at first, she noticed one of them was slowly turning, as if carefully weighted, until it gave and rolled to a stop against its twin. The dice let out a burst of white light, and Tavros' stranded foot dropped to the ground.

"No need to thank me," Vriska told the entire audience, the smug grin on her face her preferred reward. "If you're smart, you'll go find Horseface," she said to Tavros. "That's still one of his parts. It'll break again in an hour, I just sort of 'set it back.'"

Tavros sat up, the various moving parts in his legs, fully back in motion, though he was not quite satisfied. "Yeah," he said, "this is the same funny sound it was making when I got up."

"Then we had better get you to Equius," Rose said. Between Vriska and the questions stirring in her head, she was happy to volunteer. She said goodbye to Feferi, who smiled and waved in reply, but was stopped by Kanaya.

"Excuse me a moment, Tavros," Rose said. To Kanaya, she said: "Thank you, but really, I was all right."

"_All The Same Vriska Needs Someone To Stand Up To Her_" Kanaya insisted.

"But not you any more," Rose said at a whisper. "You know that. You've said as much yourself."

"...I know," Kanaya admitted. "I guess some feelings die harder than others."

"I thought the moirail feelings were, well..." Rose knew the story well enough. "Transitory."

"Pity does have some common roots," Kanaya said. "...But I will admit to scolding her right now more in an effort to get her to... _bend_ than out of pity."

"You don't have to say 'bend,'" Rose said. "I understand. We've all got reasons to want to snap Vriska in half. Except maybe our Heroes of Breath."

"Careful, Rose," Kanaya said. "See you soon."

"See you."

Rose reunited with Tavros, where he was resetting his desk to its original position. He did it in an odd way, with his face unsure but his muscles more than up to the task. Tavros' moult was being good to him. If only his mood would match. Rose signalled to him.

"Tavros," she said as he came up to her side. "A question for you, if I may. ...About your Denizen."

"Taurus?" he asked at once.

"Smelled _awful_," Vriska said, otherwise preoccupied with some Troll flash game.

"Its name was 'Taurus'?" Rose asked. "Odd. I had the strangest feeling it would be the same as John's Typheus."

Tavros looked sympathetic as he stepped up to the platform, but could only shake his head. Rose gave him a "Thank you," since it seemed rude to leave him hanging without a response just because her mind was chew on this new piece of information. He kicked the board, somewhat hard as it were, and disappeared.

As Rose waited for the light on the pad to wink out and inform her that Tavros had vacated its twin, she continued to puzzle the riddle she had been given. It was strange, in that she was not sure why she thought of it as a puzzle at all. Why was it strange that the Trolls had different Denizens? But it was hardly just that. Perhaps it was her being a Seer. She saw, heard and felt many things that the others did not. Perhaps this was one of those.

But her mind was blank. There was just one, nagging feeling, pelting her with single drops of discomfort like slow torture, the sound of the droplets of an enigma's whispering call echoing on some level beyond basic comprehension.

It had been a month since Rose had joined the Trolls, and in that month, even more than the years preceding it, Rose felt a strange sense of disconnect. Her hunch about the Denizens was just the newest, if perhaps strongest sense of _wrong_ she had experienced in her life, most in the last few hours of her original game. It did not seem like a threat to her, this feeling. If she could stomach it, she might very well go on her entire life without knowing what strange truths it hid. But still, Rose wondered if she might solve it. She knew someone trying to solve this mystery would have to be eager, and wise, and perhaps even swift, but Rose knew that if she could put together the pieces, whatever strange pieces they might be, it might provide her with some level of insight into the very nature of her existence, even if she might not like the answer.

_"And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places."_  
>- Fanfiction Legend August Derleth The light on the pad went out, and Rose followed Tavros into the transportalizer. There she found herself once more immersed in that secret, personal conference of the wisest of the wise. Rose wondered if they might know the answers to her questions, if anyone. Rose looked around, and listened, but she heard no answers, and saw no sign of the strange Troll that had been there just before. <div> 


	3. Autolevel 91

As Rose emerged in the central hub, she found that Tavros had waited for her, politely standing just to the side.

"Rose, before we go talk to Equius..." he started. "I just wanted to ask you, uh, again. About Eridan."

Rose blinked. "Oh, right. We were interrupted. I'm sorry, Tavros." Tavros smiled politely. "And... I'm sorry, Tavros." Rose could not quite meet his eyes. "It's not that I don't want to help, but I'm not really sure what I can say about Eridan. You've picked a complicated crush." _Or perhaps a particularly simple one._

"...oh," Tavros said, his face falling as far as his tone of voice. "That's okay Rose. Thanks for listening, though."

_Oh no, don't look like that,_ Rose thought, biting her lip. "Look... if Eridan's there when you get back from Equius', why don't you talk to him and see what you can about what's happening? I think that would really help a lot. Just go out and... do it. ...Ask him Outside yourself."

"Okay Rose," he said, sounding even deeper in the dumps. Rose shut her eyes, swearing inwardly, and it was because of that pause that Karkat was able to grab her by the back of her collar.

"And two for the road," he said to John as Rose's friend stepped out from the Cancer pad.

"Huh? Oh, hi Rose! Hey Tavros!" John clicked his tongue. "Bad timing."

Karkat balked. "I think you mean 'Fantastic timing, this is going to be an unmitigated success.' C'mon, Lalonde," Karkat then began dragging her over toward Equius' transportalizer.

"Uh... what's going on, Karkat?" Tavros asked. "We were just going to Equius'."

It was John who answered. "Jade went down there with Nepeta about half an hour ago to hang out. She messaged all three of us, Rose, did you bury your hubtopband again?"

"...Not intentionally," Rose said, feeling guilty. She fiddled with her inventory for a moment and dropped her favourite portable computer into her hand, along with the leftover chips that had been hanging from its leaf since the night before. She was just about to put the thing on when Karkat reached out to stop her.

"Long story short, Team Green found another crop of Underlings just outside the Leijon/Zahhak hive."

"What?" Rose and Tavros asked at once. Rose then asked, "This is, forgive me, the _ninth_?"

Karkat rolled his eyes. "Does it matter? Are we, or are we not counting the dozen single Imps they've picked off while they were playing furry charades or... gog knows what they're doing down there. Whatever! The point is, with Tavros coming, and you along to drop the average, we're going to be just fine."

"I hope you realize I resent that," Rose said, only beginning to grasp the situation.

"Then try doing something about it." Karkat then noticed Tavros, who had raised his hand in the air. "What is it?"

"Karkat, I don't want to sound like, _i DON'T WANT TO FIGHT, bUT, wELL,,,_"

"His legs are broken," Rose said. "Or at least, they will be, and you can guarantee it'll be at the worst possible time. We were going to Equius to get them repaired."

Karkat growled, and then pointed at Tavros. "Go find somewhere to get comfortable, because you're gonna be there a while! The ole' Blueblood's already on scene with Megido."

Rose tried to pass Tavros a sheepish smile. "Maybe try going back to bed, Tavros," she suggested. "If it kicks out again, you might as well already be on your back."

"Well, technically, I can't lie down in my-"

"_LEAVE!_" Karkat shouted. Tavros obliged and headed off to his quarters. Karkat started muttering under his breath, but before it could spill out onto Rose and John, he looked up and spat: "Finally!"

Rose turned about to see Dave standing on Terezi's pad. "Oh, like you'd have left without us," he said. "Way I understand it, we're the key to your entire plan."

"Just you, if you mean plan 'Strider and Megido actually work for their supper for once,'" Karkat said, with convincing acid. If Rose did not know better, she'd have thought he knew nothing about Dave and Aradia's usual activities.

"Well damn, there goes my perfect non-attendance award. It's all over, isn't it teach? Never gonna get into a good slacker job without my anti-brownnoser ribbon. Kiss my minimum wage dreams goodbye!"

Karkat tried to ignore him. "Where were you? Where's Terezi?"

"Wow, we've hit critical impatience here," Dave said, looking past Karkat to his friends. "There I was, painting the most amazing mural ever conceived by Human or Troll, when I trip across 'the Douchesponge' in its natural habitat. C'mere, Lalonde. Watch as we observe it floundering about like an asshole because its girlfriend took, like, ten more seconds to step through the hole in fucking space-time that breaks the laws of physics." Terezi grinned, having appeared part way through the ramble. "Shit, Vantas," Dave continued, "if you wanted some time to talk to Rez or whatever, you should have challenged me to a communist farm equipment duel or whatever it is you Trolls do when you butt heads."

"Or he could say hi from time to time," said Terezi to Karkat, with a suggesting shrug.

"But how is that interesting to me?" asked Dave. "How's a guy supposed to know he's interested if he doesn't try to walk up and bloody my nose?"

Terezi smirked. "Try bloodying his. Maybe you'll get his attention!"

Karkat stamped his foot down on the metal grating that made up the floor, and pointed to Equius' pad. "_Basement!_"

"I'm going!" Dave said, stepping past Karkat. "Bro..." he said to John, and then onto the pad. "...Rose, aren't I being polite? I'm like some snooty Jeeves toting bags at the fucking Hilton here, I'm so polite."

Rose shook her head to hide a smile. "You're the very model of a superficially ideal subordinate: pliant and submissive."

"Submissive!" he said, with a click of his fingers. He pointed to Karkat. "Eh? Food for thought!" He then kicked down on the pad with his heel, and disappeared.

The moment Dave was gone, Karkat turned into a muffled huddle with Terezi. Karkat had his usual trouble with volume control, but Terezi was quiet enough to avoid being heard, or at least she would have been. Rose had trouble not overhearing. She supposed it had something to do with being a Seer. Her class and element was supposed to give her the ability to calculate the future, but due to the time she had spent Grimdark, all Rose had been able to muster were a few metaphorical low-hanging fruits, like the acute senses she had picked up automatically somewhere on her echeladder. They were probably meant to help probe her element in some way, shape or form, but all she found it good for was eavesdropping. When John went to the transportalizer, Rose stayed. The conversation was too interesting to pass up.

"What was that about?" Karkat hissed.

"Pfft," Terezi said, blowing a lock of hair out of her face. "Dave and I were talking about this... and _that_... and we figured that in your case, maybe you'd go for someone who was-"

"Forget it, I don't want to hear," Karkat said, and Terezi started to laugh. "Just tell me why the whole... routine."

Terezi took a moment before she stopped chuckling, and then leaned in to whisper. "Maybe it's because you keep flirting with John in front of him. He's just pointing it out!"

"I did-"

"Do you even remember the popcorn?" Terezi said before he could get out another word. "You don't, do you?" Rose raised an eyebrow. This story, she did not know.

"It's a messy food!" Karkat protested. "It falls where it falls!"

"_H4H4H4H4H4H4_ You didn't have to eat it!" Terezi grinned and reached up to her matesprit's face to tickle a cheek with a fingertip. "_K4RKL3S D4V3S JUST T34S1NG YOU_"

Karkat reached up to push away her hand. "Don't-" But then he caught sight of Rose, loitering. "Hey!" he said to her. "Do I have to tell you, too?"

Shoot. "I didn't know if you wanted me to, uh..." This was the downside of eavesdropping. Rose never had a good lie for it.

"Forget it," Karkat said, and he broke away from Terezi to head to the platform himself. "You've both got fifteen seconds," he said, before he kicked the pad.

Rose watched him vanish and sighed with relief. She turned to Terezi, about to ask if she were going to go first, when she caught her shaking out her hand and smiling over a frown. Catching Rose watching her, Terezi hit Rose somewhat affectionately on the arm and walked to the transportalizer.

"Wait," Rose said. "They didn't tell me: do you know what they are? The Underlings?"

Terezi's smile did not fade: if anything it became genuine as she held up seven fingers, lowered them, and held up another one. In response to Rose's unspoken question, she flexed a muscle on her left arm. Then she, too, kicked the board and disappeared. Rose followed, far less amused by Terezi's count than she had been in the dark. She passed through that stuffy, noisy room in the void to the lab beyond.

John and Dave met her on the other side, Terezi and Karkat already ahead. She looked to each of them, taking a moment to recover post-transportalization. "Seven Imps?" she asked.

John waved it away. "We've had way worse."

Rose locked his eyes with him. "_And an Adonis._"

John raised both hands, cautionary and sheepish. "And _maybe_ an Adonis."

"I see," Rose said. "It's such a relief this is such a casual thing to the both of you."

"Oh, fuck, you don't know the other thing, do you?" Dave said. "Should I tell her the other thing?"

"What other thi-" Rose started.

"Seven prototypes," Dave said, without any response from John.

"Oh, well _fantastic_," Rose said, and took off of the platform at a jog. The others followed, John soon taking the lead. They rounded only a single corridor before John shouted out and dropped to the floor in a roll. Behind him, a gob of fire no larger than a spit-wad crashed into the wall, sizzling and eating its way through the raw metal. Rose took a cautious look around the corner and spotted a thrice-prototyped Marble Imp with dragon wings just down hall. It caught sight of her and ducked into a nearby room for cover.

"Imp!" John called out, and was rewarded as the Imp tottered back out of the room, Karkat's sickle struck through its chest. Rose could see the thing's health bar and it froze just above zero. Another advantage of being a Seer was being able to see the user interface, though it was a power Rose had never been much able to really accept. As the Imp staggered, something odd began to happen. The Imps eyes began to flicker, like an old, broken TV set, and the air around the players began to beat with a single, constant bass pulse. To anyone else, it was white noise, but to a member of a class that could see the game's mechanics, it was more. Rose knew it as the sound of the game itself.

_Autodetected: additional PCs (5) in Zone 61.  
><em>**avg  
><strong>_RoHe 99, WiSp 82, MaTi 99, HeVo 99, KnBl 99, SeMi 99, SeLgt 74, HeBr 82, KnTi 90; Avg 91.444  
><em>**autolevel 91**

Before their eyes, the Imp began to deteriorate, its muscles shrinking just enough to be seen. Above its health bar, its written experience level dropped one step at a time to 91. As it went, its health bar plunged just past zero, and it popped into a handful of grist.

"See?" Karkat said to Rose as he helped John to his feet. "You dropped the average like a stone. Of course, I'd rather someone who could actually _fight_ if we run into a boss."

"Now that's not fair, Karkat," John said, absently glancing at Rose out of the corner of his eye. "Jade wasn't even sure if there was an Adonis down here."

"Yeah, because they show up once someone starts trimming the-" The halls of Equius' quarters near-shook with the sound of a roaring klaxon. "And here we go!"

A half-dozen Imps screeched down the hall. The game had reset the strife, and it told Rose so: "STRIFE," plastered across her vision. To Rose's further irritation, it began to beat high-tempo music into her ears as well. From the way Karkat instinctively turned to Terezi, she could hear it as well.

"It's the local _Battle 2_," Terezi said. Rose nodded confirmation.

"Mid-boss," Karkat gloated. But he had little time to celebrate before something huge hit down just a few rooms away, slamming into a heavy wall like a giant metal drum. A wall down the hall began to dent. Karkat gestured to the dent. "And that's an Adonis."

"Thank you for the vote of conditional confidence, John," Rose said, "but I'm afraid that he's right." John nodded in reply, and as they heard a muffled, whinny from behind the wall. "...Of course it is."

"How close is it?" Karkat asked.

"We've got a few turns," Dave said. "This place is a mess." Rose did not ask how he knew.

"Then we better get going," John said, to rally the others. "Everyone up!"

* * *

><p>It had been a bright and glorious day when everybody had woken up in the kingdom of Cuteopia, but before they had really gotten to work, there came a horrible giant, and its army of striped goblins! The giant stepped over the walls and shouted demands. "A tub of fish!" he said. "A bag of oats the size of a grain-storing tower-structure!"<p>

"_oh no!_" said the lovable thief! "_i have a feline there aren't enough oats in the whole wide world!_"

"Nepeta, I don't think-"

"So she climbed!" And she climbed and she climbed, up the towers to the walls, up to the highest point in the castle, where the wizards that once lived there purrformed horrible expurriments! But then- "Oh, shiiiii...nnizzle," said the lovable thief, who had just remembered that her friend the centaur could hear her and would not be happy if she used bad words! Even if there _was_ a striped goblin, already up on the platfurm!

"This is why I think this is a bad time!"

"_i can fight you!_" said the thief to the goblin. "_even if it's not very safe up here! i might fall if i pounce, so it's a good thing the witch from far-off lands can HELP ME WITH HER GUN or I MIGHT BE IN TROUBLE!_"

Jade Harley, who lived on a rock in not-space and not Cuteopia, could only really see Cuteopia if she tried _really hard_ and frankly, she was not in the mood to do so. To her - and probably to Nepeta if she would just give it up for one minute! - they were inside what had once been a cubicle farm. Well, it looked like one, or at least it had before the giant monster had landed in the middle and upset the whole thing. Equius' subterranean quarters in the lab served as the lab's administrative offices, or at least that was what it had made itself out to be. While some of the offices showed eerie signs of prior use, this cubicle farm had borne more resemblance to a maze than a work environment: with cubicles set up in dead ends and treasure chests stuck into every third desk. In fact, Jade was of the impression that none of the computers actually worked. Even if they had, it would not change the fact that they were just another randomly generated set piece from the great game they had been forced to call "home." Jade snapped up her sniper rifle, the **Tottenshot**, and searched for the source of Nepeta's trouble. Her friend was up in the catwalks that criss-crossed the basement, and the Imp had just cut her off from the mid-boss. "Cover me!" Jade called to one side.

Equius looked up at the causeway and nodded. "Agreed."

He darted past her, politely asking Jade to excuse him as he went, and barrelled into two approaching Imps on the ground. Jade took the opportunity to line up her shot, and as Nepeta approached the Imp, Jade sent a round through the Imp's torso. As ever, the shot left no hole, causing imperceptible damage only in the thing's code. That had not been the point. Instead, it distracted the imp. It looked for Jade, and Nepeta took the opportunity to strike, cutting the Imp through with a stroke of her claws. Marble and health gel pelted down onto the great beast below, and Nepeta followed, jumping off the catwalk and striking hard into the thing's neck. The Adonis reared, but Nepeta would not have been a Rogue if she had let that throw her. Nepeta held her grasp, claws cut deep where the thing would have kept its spine, straight between the crab-like armour plates on its back. It would have been a hideous, crippling blow on a living being: instead, to this simulated beast with no vital organs, no bones beyond the abstract, and nothing that would speed their process, damage was moderate at best. Nepeta continue to cling, giggling.

It was a towering thing, the Marble Adonis, feet taller than any Giclops. It was crab-armoured muscle from head to toe, to the point of grotesque distortion: Jade could see muscle on its dragon wings; she could make out every prominent muscle from seahorse fins to plain-horse face; there was even muscle on the suggestively-placed spinneret that adorned its normally smooth lower body. Jade almost thought she saw muscles on his moustache, which was magnificent one way or the other. To complete the picture, it had a preposterous blonde hair-mane. As Jade understood it, the Adonises were one of the great beasts that were set about the players' worlds, meant to guard important side-quests as mid-bosses, alongside the odd Dersite chess monstrosity. They could command the Underlings, who weren't normally so bright, but as far as strategy was concerned, they relied on the Denizens, the Agents and orders from the Dersite Queen. Since none of those were on hand, the mid-bosses tended to be somewhat erratic.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Equius asked, one Imp under-foot, the other trapped in a headlock. "A shame to destroy it."

"Uh... huh," said Jade. Jade never knew what to say to Equius. It just never seemed like a good idea. In his arms, an Imp struggled and squealed incomprehensibly, beating on his hands.

The Adonis twisted, reached up over its shoulder and grabbed Nepeta, and threw her to the floor. She landed, if at a bit of a roll, but her momentum was too much and she careened into an office supplies cabinet, eliciting a yelp of pain. Jade winced in sympathy. The Adonis pointed to its victim and shouted a command, which three of the surviving Imps responded to at once. Jade pumped a round into the backs of one of the retreating Imps, but again, no luck.

"Of course, this will not stand," said Equius.

The final Imp continued to squeal from its headlock. It seemed especially perturbed that it was not being allowed to follow the Mid-Boss' orders, or at least, that was Jade's impression of "Gur fzryy! _Gur fzryy!_" or whatever it was saying past Equius' underarm. The Imps were especially simple creatures. Before she and her friends had left their familiar four prototypes behind, Jade had almost gotten a hang of their AI, for all the miraculous effort the game had made to make them seem as lifelike as the carapace-people. She supposed their language must be simple too, though she did not understand it.

Jade swapped out her rifle for her favourite mid-range weapon, the **Curean Blunderbuss**, and closed the gap with the Adonis. Equius put his fist through the Imp's head - in a manner of speaking, as the Imp collapsed on impact - and followed one step behind. Nepeta rolled to her feet and yelped again, but still made off with a small chest that had fallen out of the supply cabinet. She then ducked behind the rest of the debris and used it as cover as she began to plot her escape. Jade knew that was what she was doing, because she said so.

"_...beneath the sad but kind of comfy pile of rubble, the lovable thief considered her options as she rubbed her ouchie leg and wished she had some of the great healie fruit because_ wow, my foot is not supposed to bend this way, is it? ...Eugh. Oh, that's not nice at all." Equius pulled ahead of Jade, which was best, since it was where he was needed. He cut off the nearest Imp and shoved it hard aside. Nepeta continued her monologue: "She wished the goblins would give her time to heal it herself but they were very purrsitent!" She pulled up on one leg, raising herself just high enough to stab out at another incoming Imp. "_the lovable! thief!_" Nepeta continued to stab as she narrated, "_was very glad!_ Oh, go away!" She cut a wild cut in front of the Imp. "_that her friend the clockwork robot was able to keep the giant at bay!_"

A rocket cracked against the Adonis. Now that Jade had a better angle, it was easy to see that Aradia had been keeping the Adonis off of their wounded companion. She had arrived with Equius, having already been in his room for one of her frequent repairs and their mutual... conversations. Jade levelled her gun and fired a flechette of radium into the thing's spinneret, but Jade did not even think it noticed her compared to round after round of Aradia's small-grade explosives.

Equius tossed aside another Imp, finally reaching the rubble Nepeta had used for cover. His moirail popped over the back with a big grin. He tossed her one of his healing items as she narrated: "_suddenly, the thief was rescued by the sudden arrival of the-_"

"_Nepeta, stop wasting time on this f00lishness and eat your potion._"

Nepeta's response, glaring and pout all in defiance of her injury, almost made Jade laugh in the middle of the fight. Nepeta popped the candy all the same, all without breaking her pathetic-death-stare. She broke it only to reach down and, by the sound of things, wrench her own foot back into place as the potion worked its magic.

"_equius. catch_"

Jade and Equius both looked up, only to see a wall of muscular Underling flesh barrelling in their direction: an arm as tall as them. Jade dove for cover as Equius took one half-step onto the rubble for height and slammed his hands up against the Adonis, seizing its arm. Jade scraped her leg, but the Adonis came off far worse as Equius tried to throw it entirely. One of its legs slammed into the opposite wall as it tried to balance itself, making a noise that resounded through the complex and even threw the Imps off-balance. Not one to be taken off-balance when she could help it, Jade raised her gun again and fired at one of the Imps Equius had wounded. Even that failed to drop the thing. Jade was starting to get irritated. She was a better hunter than this, or at least she had been in the game.

"Are you okay?" Jade asked Equius.

"You could have..." Equius said to Aradia as he staggered under the weight, "...You could have given me more warning!"

"_no time_" said Aradia. As if to explain, another explosion ripped across the room from the opposite wall. The Adonis began to rise, trying to elbow Equius in the process, but as it did, Jade saw that Aradia had punched a hole in an adjoining hallway. Through it, she could just make out that...

"The glorious cavalry," said Aradia, monotone, "has arrived to save Cuteopia."

The Adonis had barely risen to its feet when Karkat and John, in symmetry, pressed toward it and attacked opposite ankles. The creature swiped at them, but they stepped away, disappearing in a blur of speed and some of Dave's special training. Karkat's blade came away gore-bit with marbled white-purple blood: a special reward from the game for his element. He shook the blade to coax the sludge down onto his fist and rounded for another attack.

The Adonis was bellowing, sloshing its tongue about almost at random in its alien speech. "Gnetrg bhgfvqref!" Jade opened fire on the Adonis in reply, joined in her attack by Terezi and Dave on the fore. The Adonis swung down at them, only for Terezi to grab Dave's wrist and vanish. Jade saw them, that same second, drop down onto the creature's back from above: she had not even seen them take position. Dave left Terezi to begin his own multiplication. On the Adonis' back, Terezi unsheathed her cane, taking the weighted sheath in one hand and her jagged, half cane-sword in the other. She leapt to cut at its face, and the Adonis swung at her with its great bicyclops horn. They both missed by inches.

"Jade!" shouted Nepeta. Before Jade could respond, she felt a wrenching tug on the back of her head. An Imp, imitating the players, had turned their own jumping stunt against them. It had caught Jade's hair on the way down, tearing at her scalp. Jade was immediately disoriented, and another jumped her from the front, cutting across her chest. The weight on her back was relieved only by Nepeta, who ran the Imp through with such urgency that she nicked Jade in the back as well. Jade gouged at the remaining Imp's eyes with her fingernails: the Imp barely responded to her attack, but it sufficed to push the thing away. As it stumbled to one side, Rose appeared with a flash step of her own and stabbed the Imp from behind, on both Quills of Echidna. To Jade's immense frustration, the creature survived even that. Despite a growing sense of nausea, Jade raised her gun and fired into the thing's head. Rose flinched as a flechette emerged, piercing through from one side of the Imp's head to the other.

And even that failed. To the Imp, it was no worse than a blow to its smallest finger, and it barked defiance and snapped crab-claws at Rose. Rose kicked it down, obviously just as shocked by its resilience as Jade. It seemed about ready to get up again when it shook, sat up straight, and then popped into grist.

"Poison damage," Rose said, "from your ammun-god, Jade, your health!" Before Jade could protest, she had Rose's hand in her face, forcing one of John's' healing gushers between her teeth. Jade chewed and swallowed obediently, only to be surprised by a shriek at her back. She tried to turn, but Nepeta's hand clapped down on her shoulder.

"Hair in the wound!" Nepeta said. "Hair in the wound!" Jade hissed with pain as she felt what Nepeta meant. The tear in her scalp was healing fast, even if it meant closing about strands of her hair. Nepeta set to work.

Rose tried to pass on a reassuring smile, but quickly turned about to guard her friend. "The Adonis just ordered them after the Humans," she said. "He must know we're a significantly lower level."

"Tell me about it!" Jade said. "Rose, didn't Imps not used to be a problem? Nepeta and I were just walking along and there they were, trying to make a full-sized picture of themselves with a photocopier! We fought for a while, but... I don't know! I'm useless!" Nepeta murmured unhappily. "And then suddenly this big guy was here, stomping through the Village of the Adorapawl."

"That...what?"

Jade tried to wave that away. "The... uh... the _over there_," she said instead, pointing past the battle to the opposite corner. "And you know, Rose, I know I had some trouble when I first got in the game, but I think this worse, but - ow! - but what do I know? I just _hit my head_!"

Rose nodded absently. "Where are the other Imps?"

"There's three," Nepeta said, as she continued to work with Jade's hair.

"Two," Rose said. "Karkat got one in the hall. Have you seen the others?"

"No," Nepeta and Jade admitted together. As they spoke, the Adonis slammed a fist into the floor nearby, straight at John. He dodged to one side and struck out at the fist - a blow that went entirely ignored. The mid-boss turned after Aradia and two of the Daves, instead. Rose darted out to grab John by the arm and bring him to their corner.

"What is it?" he asked, flustered.

"The three of us are admitting we're out of our league," Rose said.

"Nepeta?" he said. "You're pretty much the same level as every-oh." His face fell. "You mean me."

"Yes," said Rose.

"Thus the..." He tugged his sleeve. "The grabbing. ...Yeah, okay. There are two Imps left. I say we deal with or hide from them. Anyone have a plan? We'll be safer where we can see them coming," John said. He took notice of the catwalks. "Jade, can you get us up there with your Spacey-thing?"

"I can get _you_ up there," she admitted. "The Witch thing, iiiit's... mostly other people and stuff. Kanaya's the other way around, I think."

"Okay," John said, "send me and Rose up to that catwalk. I'd windy-thing myself up but this is faster. Nepeta, can you get Jade up there safely?"

Nepeta pulled away from the back of Jade's head. Jade was relieved. "No problem," her friend said.

_No 'problem'?_ Disturbed by the lack of pun, Jade turned about and saw Nepeta trying to hide her right fist inside the cup of her left hand. She was not doing the best job of it, and Jade quickly saw that her fist was covered in slick red. Jade's hand instinctively went for the back of her head, but Nepeta raised her own in caution, and Jade stopped.

"Okay," Jade said, as much to Nepeta as her Human friends. "Ready?" Jadereached up and clapped them both on the arms. Reaching deep inside of herself, she found that strange feeling that had been building in her since the start of the game. She did not know how to describe it, save to call it a flame that burned in her heart: a flame burning green in the shape of a twisting spiral. She felt power surge along the spiral, first to its own core and then in a burst out through her entire body. With a flash of light, Rose and John reappeared on the catwalk above.

* * *

><p>John took to his new position faster than Rose. "What's his health?" he asked his friend, all business.<p>

Rose took a look down each edge of the catwalk before checking the game's UI. "Half," she said, not wanting to look any further before confirming their safety. John was of like mind, already heading down one side of the catwalk to check the adjoining passages. As far as Rose understood it, the catwalks were part of the lab's extensive maintenance tunnel system. They filled the upper half of every basement room, and continued into the real access tunnels inside the walls. It seemed unlikely that the Imps would come from those tunnels, but the Underlings did know the layout instinctively.

Below, the battle was a mess. Rose could spot her allies trying to run three tactics at once, and that was never a good sign. Never minding Jade and Nepeta's retreat to the safest ladders, Terezi and Dave were acting independently of the others. Without John, Karkat was on his own, shouting at the others to help him: "...or we can stay here all day for all I care!" Equius and Aradia lashed out at the monster only at random, as they spent most of their time having one of their _talks_.

"I cannot help but notice your utter disregard for the good repair of my home and surrounds." Equius was close enough that Rose's preternatural ears could have easily heard him, but he was being loud enough to make it unnecessary.

"Don't be silly." Aradia's synthesized voice was close to monotone, which was often the case with Equius. "If I weren't intimately concerned with the state of your hive, the exits might collapse and trap me in here during one of your extended repairs."

"My repairs take exactly as long as required," Equius said in retort. "If I had any reason to extend our time together, I would simply ask instead of being frustrating and indirect, like certain others I could name."

"Oh?" she asked. "So will you?"

"I..." He puttered about for a moment. "Yes. _We shall go on and e%pedition together. Against these inde% Underlings if nothing else._"

Equius might have been wise in choosing the word "expedition" for Aradia, his use of his personal tone was his undoing. Perhaps he used it to rally his confidence - Rose was not sure if the use of tone was ever intentional - but the effect of the demanding, bossy timbre was the same in the end. Aradia made a flat, beeping sound, not unlike a grunt. "I think I'll pass," she said, and flew away.

"Rose!" Jade called from one side. "Found one!"

Rose saw it. One of the Imps: prototyped musclebeast, bicyclops and, most relevantly, spider, was crawling along the walls toward the two girls on the ladder. Its heads hissed at them just before it pounced, and Jade was not equipped to intercept. Fortunately, John had been watching, and the Imp was quickly smashed back to the wall by a gust of wind. Rose ran over to the ladder, not sure what she could do. Use her own powers? It had been so long...

Rose touched on the fire in her heart: that strange, pink, slow-turning sun. Quickly, she gathered an orb of Light in her hand. Her body knew what this was for, muscle memory at work, as it was one of the first and only tricks she had learned before taking up with the Horrorterrors. Unfortunately, the Light responded with all the obedience of an over-eager child. The orb, meant to burst in a blinding attack, did as it was told, but not when she had asked and not at all in the correct fashion. It erupted with a flash, but unlike the practiced attacks Rose had once generated in-game, this one burned the eyes of both the Imp and her companions.

But not Aradia. With the Imp stunned, Aradia reached over and fired a small rocket from one wrist. The Imp was reduced to a scorch mark on the wall, and grist on the floor below.

A burst of Light had no effect on a Hero of the same, and so Rose was able to help Jade to the top as she blinked away the flash's after-effects. "I'm sorry," Rose said, and Jade nodded in response. Nepeta tried to recover without letting go of the ladder. As she waited, something caught Rose's eye - or more precisely, invaded. The game's GUI, impolite as ever, stuck an attack banner across the top of Rose's vision, containing with the words "UNDERLING RUBRICK: CHARGING TIDES". Both Seers shouted to warn the others.

The Adonis, its body channelling Eridan's purple flame, fell to its knees and spread its arms wide below it. Slowly, it began to pulls arms forward, as though they were dragging a great weight. No one in the group cared for the showmanship, and every one of Rose's companions took advantage of the pause to land extra hits on the as the beast's magical power began to gather. There was nothing they could do to stop it entirely, unfortunately. In a moment, a great wall of water appeared as though flowing naturally through the wall behind the Adonis. It rushed towards Rose's allies, leaving them only seconds to act. Up in the catwalk, Rose and her friends were safe, and Nepeta climbed the last few rungs join them. Aradia grabbed Equius, as he was nearby, and disappeared into the time stream, and Dave did the same for Terezi. Jade could do nothing to help her friends from her position, but John snapped up his wrist and launched Karkat off-balance and into the air. Unfortunately, John had greatly miscalculated. The wave that filled the room flowed with full force for some time, and when Karkat landed in the water before John could act, the water grinded him against the wall and buffeted him with clutter and chests. When the water cleared, things looked dim for a moment, but thanks to Troll resilience or game strength, Karkat began to push himself to his feet.

The Adonis stormed towards him, but was stopped when four of his opponents returned to the room from the flow of Time. Nepeta dropped to join them, and the Adonis lashed out against them all at once with its magic. It now seemed unafraid to use its myriad powers, most of which had been so far removed from their animal sources that it defied a logical progression.

"Glad the Imps can't _really_ do this," Jade said to Rose, in a quiet voice. Rose only nodded, knowing she would not be heard over the sound of Jade's rifle. John was participating in the fight with an airborne hammer. Rose could do nothing. Instead, she turned to the walls, the ceiling, every odd crevice, looking for that one last Imp.

Far below, Karkat was carrying on a shouting conversation with whoever happened to pass him by.

"Don't see you saving me from the hundred mile-and-hour wave, Strider," he snipped, which almost seemed polite compared the insults at Equius and Aradia that had preceded it. "Oh, no need to be concerned for Karkat, he's just the meat shield, he's not trying to _build up his power with a liquid._" Karkat shook a bloody fist at Dave.

"...Look fine, dude," Dave said with a glance. He was right. Karkat may have been covered in bruises and soaked in water, but the parts of his body already soaked in blood remained untouched through some game magic.

"You didn't know that!" he protested.

"Well then do the Bloody thing and get it over with," Dave suggested. Rose could see Karkat had not gathered near enough Blood to use his powers in his element's strange way, but imagined that Dave would not have cared one way or the other. "How's this work, you walk up and squirt it out your eye like a lizard?"

"How about you mind your own business before something squirts out _your_ eye?"

Terezi happened to land nearby. "Is that how it works, Karkles? I didn't actually know!" Rose could only imagine Terezi's hearing was as good as her own. Like Karkat, she kept her eyes on the fight as she talked. "_1 JUST F1GUR3D YOU H4D GR34T BLOOD PR3SSUR3_"

Karkat frowned at her. "Why would that even-"

"It would explain why his head hasn't popped," Dave said. He was the only one not watching the Adonis, since it would not have been half cool enough to do so.

"See?" Terezi said. "Someone got it."

"All I want to know, between your back-patting and your pre-prepped tailored jibes" Karkat said, as he dodged a shot of webbing, "is why you wasted all your infinite Time saving the one person _who knew what was coming_."

Terezi grinned at Dave. "_H3S GOT YOU TH3R3_"

Dave took a beat to put together his response, and was interrupted part way by the Adonis' backhand, but otherwise kept himself together. "Kay-kay, you've got it all wrong. I was the one all swooning off into the lady's arms, blushing waif like I am. Hey, who knew she could time travel? I'll tell you, I'm just a lucky son of a bitch, picking some nice arms to fall in, I think."

Terezi's smile went from toothy sarcasm to smooth and genuine for just a moment, but Karkat continued without interruption. "More like you're a handsy nooksniffer, is what's going on here."

"I'm touched," Terezi said under her breath.

Dave heard her and muttered, "'s what he said," but Karkat was too busy carrying on to notice either.

"But hey, I get it! Maybe you just don't have the mangrit to lift this paragon of wrath on muscles over here, I get that! But hey! Hey!" Karkat was forced to shout after Dave for a while as he ducked away, before Karkat realized that he was not necessarily snubbing him and simply returning to the fight to take a good opening. "Let's ignore that, then!" he shouted to Terezi. "Let's just you and your boyfriend make smart-ass remarks until the giant body-builder falls down dead."

Terezi near shot daggers at him, but if they said any more, Rose careful eavesdropping was interrupted by a call from the side. "Equius, I _need to see Karkat_!" Rose turned her head to look, but before she caught sight of Nepeta, her eyes locked with a set of white slits perched just above one of the causeway system's dim lights. No sooner had the last Imp seen Rose than it spat a bullet of water out at her, straight from its seahorse-trunk mouth. The projectile struck her hard on the jaw and neck. It _hurt_ - hurt like Rose had never been able to imagine a punch would until she had first taken an Imp's to her eye. For a second she was stunned, and only heard Jade's answering shot before she regained focus and found that the Imp had left its perch and taken to the air on a set of dragon wings. She caught sight of it once again as John retrieved his hammer and readied to face the Imp. It struck their platform hard in its landing, shaking the whole thing.

The Imp lunged at John before he had regained his footing, and swiped out with its claws once, twice, both hitting nothing but air; a third cut landed across her friend's shoulder as he tried to counterattack. The Imp gave a shrill cry, not unlike laughter. But that was a mistake. Here, like in so many places, the Imp showed its flaws as a simulated foe. It had not finished its scripted motions before John returned its attack with a hammer straight to its chin. His second attack went wide, and the Imp tried to capitalize, only for John to duck under and past, tripping the Imp onto the platform behind him. Rose pounced and stabbed once to its face, again through the side, and then a third time to the shoulder. The Imp shrieked and cut up at her in reply, but Rose pulled away in careful motion. Stepping fast behind the Imp, Rose jiggled her left Quill, which caused it to spawn a thick cord from its base across to its twin. Before it could follow her, Rose caught the Imp about the neck in a sharp, garrotting motion.

"Rose!" Jade called. Rose looked up from the struggling, but powerful Imp to see that Jade had once again readied her high-powered sniper rifle. Rose pulled away, and her friend filled the Imp with each shot from her powerful gun's meagre three-clip. The last Imp shattered, winning Jade's cry of "_Finally!_". Most of the grist went to John, who had ducked in with his hammer, just in case.

A moment later, Dave popped into existence beside his friends. "...Hey," he said as he observed the scene. "Guess I'm fashionably late."

"Aw, Dave," Jade said, "we still need your help. Someone needs to compliment us for that display of _sheer combat prowess_."

Breathing deep, John gritted his teeth. "Just like old times, huh Rose?"

Rose smirked, catching her own breath. "You mean old times, when you could barely lift your hammer, but we were still routing Imps by the half-dozen?"

"Is it my fault you can't sympathize with the old times?" he asked. He shook his head, and looked over at the fight below. "Sheesh, Rose," John said, "Where's your empathy for a poor useless guy? You psychiatrists have a word for that."

"Sociopathic tendencies," Jade supplied. She patted Rose's arm. "But that's a good thing in here!" Another pat. "A good thing!"

"That's a relief," Rose said. "My desire to turn you all into a collection of decorative hats has been subdued by your show of support."

Dave raised an eyebrow. "Wait, hold on. First tell me what kind of hat. And think carefully, Rose. This will impact the rest of our relationship."

"Oh, I understand," Rose winced as Jade again opened fire on the boss below. "Give me a moment."

"Take your-"

But then he stopped. Rose did not need to ask why: it was not as though Nepeta had flown through the air just for him. The Trolls' Rogue landed just off the Adonis' shoulder, which she pierced with her claws before pouncing to a nearby pillar and then back down to the ground with impossible, Rogue parkour. Equius, who had apparently thrown her, provided a distraction to cover her escape, fist-first. The other Trolls were just as astonished as the Humans, but this was only underlined when Nepeta ran up to Karkat, looked him in the eyes and clutched his face in both hands.

His face delicately cupped, Nepeta looking him in the eye, Karkat looked near about to panic, only for Nepeta to rub both hands down his face. Before the others had even realized what had happened, Karkat's look of horror transformed into a smile, then a manic grin, made all the more enthused and terrifying by the liberal smears of Jade's blood streaking his face: a player's _real_ blood added to his collection. Slowly, the Human and Underling blood all began to disappear, as if receding into his skin.

"Megido!" he called to Aradia, who was helping Equius hold the Adonis off. "Both of you clear out!" Aradia did as her leader instructed. The blood absorbed, Karkat's power flared, and for a moment, Rose could even make out the symbol of Blood catch across the game's interface. "The rest of you! _ON. ME!_" he called to the others. And then he charged. The Adonis responded as none of them would if facing a fully-empowered Knight of Blood: it dropped to his level and snapped its arm straight out to grab Karkat, but the Knight jumped the attack and lodged one of his sickles into the flesh of its palm. He pulled, harder than seemed physically possible, and near propelled himself up the creature's arm in a flash of red power, high enough to strike at its face. Sgrub gave him no blood as he used his powers, out of a sense of game balance, but that did not make his attack look any less brutal as he lashed out at the Adonis' face, cut past a the creature's attempt to gore him with its horn, and then caught a sickle in its neck as he began to fall back to the ground.

His power was fading, but Karkat was hardly done. "'Rezi!" he called from his position. Terezi was already en route. She cut at one of the Adonis' legs with her blade, slicing a neat blow along one of its marbled stripes, and struck the other with her heavy staff. As the Adonis barked at them in its garbled language, she jumping up to snatch Karkat safely to the ground. The Adonis went after them, but that only left it open for Nepeta, who vaulted off Terezi's shoulders in her own turn and cut at the creature's hands. Her strikes continued as she moved, coming to a stop on tip-toe atop one of the room's last standing cubicle walls. Dave seemed ready to join them, but the Adonis' pressing attack took it out of range; Jade worked fast to reload. Nepeta worked with incredible speed, but the Adonis was powerful in its own right. One of the boss' fists did break Nepeta's defences, but as her perch tipped to the ground, Equius caught the Adonis' follow-up in mid-swing.

And then Equius began to chuckle. As he and the Adonis fought, Equius reached out his hand for his moirail. Their coordination was perfect, the signals passing between them imperceptible, and Nepeta's hand was virtually ready to meet Equius' before she was even on her feet. In a moment they were up, first on top of the fist and then, with a vault, to the shoulders of the Adonis.

"After you," Equius offered, gesturing to the Adonis' shoulder with his free hand.

"That would be purrfect," Nepeta concurred. Before the Adonis could react, she dropped to her knees and plunged in her claws, to the knuckle.

Her eyes were closed, her hand still clasping Equius' as he carefully kept from squeezing hers in turn. This time, everyone could see the power flow: the room shone blue or green, as one looked to one side or the other or its sources shone stronger than the rest. To Rose, the game was happy to announce a Fraymotif, but she did not pay it much attention, as she could hear the _sound_. They could all hear it: first a crunch, and then the slow, churning sound of sticking meat that did not exist. The Adonis twitched, and then heaved forward as the power worked inside its body. Rose could not believe it: it would seem that when it came to merging Heart and Void, the game had chosen to be very literal. For the first time, Rose was glad the Adonis had no true organs, and no true sense of pain. What had remained of its health bar expended, the brace slipping further and further off the coloured bar, until it fell and collapsed against the floor. Like all of the Mid-Bosses, the Adonis shook, froze, and then exploded in a shower of grist.

Nepeta took the landing with all of her usual awkward grace as Equius made a practiced landing beside her. While Nepeta brushed herself off at first, she soon was picking at the loose grist on the ground just out of habit. It was, if nothing else, tidy. As the others clued in to the fact that the fight was over, they began to absently join her, all save for Aradia, who simply up and left. Equius watched forlorn as she passed him without a word, but he offered none to get her to stay. He too joined in the work. Part way through their chore, Karkat called up to Jade as she and Rose made their way down the ladder.

"So what, did any of you monkeys level?"

"Good morning to you too, Fuckass," Jade said. She flicked a rifle shell at him, which he deflected with irritation. "Nothing for me."

"Me neither," Rose said with disappointment. John just shook his head, and Dave ignored the question entirely.

"Fantastic," Karkat said. "Because the nine-level gap you four give us from the auto-leveller is really worth the trouble we get from hiding you from fucking Goombas."

"Trolls have Goombas?" John asked as he hit the floor.

"Trolls have Goombas so nasty they'd bite off your face as soon as walk back and forth into you!" Karkat shouted. He then proceeded to do a case-for-case analysis of Human deaths at the hands of famous, Troll-eight-bit opponents.

"I have _got_ to see Troll Mario," John said, interrupting something about Flea Men.

Karkat swiped a hand past John's face. "You couldn't even comprehend the social implications of Troll Mario before he landed his engorged, Red-blooded gut straight on top of your fragile, teen skull."

"Flirtiiing," Jade whispered to him as she passed him by for a heavy chunk of Build Grist. He swiped a hand at her, too. She had been quiet enough for John not to hear, but once again, it had not been a problem for Seers.

"You're damn right he's flirting," Terezi said, at a normal speaking volume. John was confused, but Karkat just played to type.

"Oh, where do you get off?" he asked her, but he immediately changed the subject. "Hey!" he called. "Hey, all of you! All of you, over here right now, this is an official meeting! _STOP FUCKING BATHING,_" he added to Nepeta, who was rubbing her greasy sleeve through her greasy hair. Nepeta happily replaced her hat and joined the circle that formed around Karkat.

"Okay, hi everyone," John said. Karkat's uncharacteristic, if begrudging, silence suggested that this had been rehearsed. "Karkat and I know you're all tired of the surprise Imp attacks."

"That's one way to put it," Rose said, speaking for everyone.

"Well, here's the deal," he said. "Karkat and I had a plan and, in a manner of speaking, you've all been a part of its first attempt."

"What Egbert is trying to say," Karkat interrupted, "was that Seahorse Fabio and his gang interrupted a major announcement we were going to make this morning. From tomorrow on, everyone's work shifts are being adjusted. We're going to send patrols into the Underlab to flush out what's left of the Imps."

"Really?" Jade said to Rose. They were just two voices in the concert of murmured response. "There's so much ground to cover!" Rose agreed: the lab had once been filled to the brim with Underlings. That the Trolls had cleared out a liveable area in the upper floors did not imply that the rest was anywhere near safe.

"On top of that," John said, failing to interrupt the group. Instead, he stuck his fingers in his mouth and blew a shrill whistle. "On top of that," he repeated to listening ears, "we're going to make sure there's a Human on every patrol."

The response to that was grim. Jade and Rose understood, though judging from Dave's usual non-reaction, he knew quite well that "Human" meant only the other three. Rose looked down at her hands, still angry at how useless she had been in the battle, practically until the last moments and even then just to help topple an Imp. It was not a comfortable feeling. Of course she would join the patrols.

"I don't wanna hope for bosses, really," John admitted, "...but that is where the money is, so to speak. Well, the XP. I dunno how many are left, or how the game even does that stuff! ...But don't be surprised if you get called in at random. If there's so much as another Mid-Boss, most of us will be coming." His friends nodded.

"_ALL RIGHT, THAT'S IT,_" Karkat said, in his room-clearing voice. "_ALL OF YOU BEAT IT. TEREZI?_" Karkat then coughed, adjusted his voice and repeated himself. Terezi rolled her eyes and walked over from Dave's side. Karkat coughed before he spoke again, as if worried his tone would slip a second time. "Look, I'm hungry. You wanna grab something to eat, or what?"

It almost sounded like an apology: Terezi certainly looked him over as though she thought the same. In the end, she shrugged. "Sorry, Karkat. We seriously do have some painting to finish." Karkat harrumphed. "It's like what you were ranting! It's kind of hard to get your hands on him these days."

She turned to leave, tapping Dave on the hand as she went. He tossed her a thumbs up, but then turned back to Rose and pantomimed _you_, _think_ and _hat_ before taking his leave. Together, he and his patron Troll hopped through the mix of rubble and detritus, neither really able to kick the habit of stepping aside to grab the nearest chunk of grist.

Karkat frowned after them. "Not hard for you, apparently," he muttered, so soft that only a Seer could hear him.

* * *

><p><em>For what it's worth, the other classes that can see the GUI are Bards and Mages: Mages because they reshape reality and Bards, because I thought they should be able to hear the background music and decided it was silly to split the powers (let's just say "they're in tune with the game's (ultimately very predictable) beats and patterns"). While we're talking about powers, there's a reason Jade never teleports Equius to help Nepeta. We'll get into it eventually. #excitingnotes<em>

_Before you say anything about Jade's Witch powers (and we get tied up in the minutiae about what is and is not a power canon Jade got from Bec or her Sprite), note that the rules I'm using her were carefully defined for the first draft over a year ago. I'd switch over, but since Andrew's still throwing out powers at his usual, leisurely pace (and since Jade's situation makes understanding impossible), I prefer my finished notes to his unfinished. Among these, note Karkat's Blood powers, which I can prove are over a year old via my old throwaway fic, kk_ . I decided it was best to introduce the different powers before Andrew makes them even more different. Ironically, his newly revealed Class rules don't differ much from my own (I probably will adapt those to match), but I'm not going to otherwise hedge my bets. #mindthegap_

_#didyouknowthat I actually meant the Adonis to be a mid-sized enemy, the size of a Lich or so (but still a Mid-Boss, don't mistake me). That ended when I caught sight of the muscular horse-man living in a tube in the lab's basement when I replayed Alterniabound for layout-checking reasons. Suddenly, I had my Mid-Boss. And yes, I realize the horse-man was probably supposed to be a Dersite Knight, but I have a headcanon that even the big Chess pieces are intelligent, so… By the way, before anyone mistakes my use of "Adonis" to be mis-informed, the original Mid-Boss was going to be a mix of the "attractive male" romance novel model and the actual God of Desire, in an effort to make a more interactive boss fight. …A more interactive boss fight in my fanfic, yes. Originally, Adonises were going to have a game power divorced from their prototypes that could Charm players (Confusion). I later decided that if I was going to be silly and write about status effects, inevitably Confusing my points of view was just going to complicate things. #nowyouknow_

_Rose eventually picked did assign at least one hat. John was thrilled. #hashtagjokes #hilarious_


	4. The Tale of the Lone Soldier

Over the next few days, Karkat and Terezi's relationship began to fall apart. Neither made it much of a secret. Both of them were predisposed to fight in public, one for lack of foresight and the other for want of focused spectacle, and as time went on, they spent less and less time doing otherwise. This was not to imply that they fought often. Instead, they fought no more often and no more fiercely than anyone did communicating with Karkat, and that was the problem. Terezi had never communicated with Karkat the way the others had. Either Karkat had beaten her at her own game, or Terezi had lost interest in playing. Dave could not really tell which. He was not even sure how their troubles had begun.

Frankly, Dave had never imagined the hundreds of factors that played into a falling-out like this, Human or Troll. His bro had dated on and off - mostly off - but had never so much as shown Dave any pics, much less talked about why things had broken off with Mystery Name #4. He had certainly never come to his thirteen year old kid brother for a slap on the back or a "Dude was whack, yo." With Karkat and Terezi, he got front row seats. For six days and seven nights, Dave got to watch things play out, and found that it was like they were letting hundreds of little grains of sand slip out of their fingers a pinch at a time, until there was nothing left. Words changed: compliments became less enthusiastic one half-step at a time before evaporating entirely; criticism became complaints. Vantas had never exactly been a wellspring of grace and civility, but Terezi's special exception seemed to have expired at last. Karkat was not likely even conscious of stopping, in the same way that he had not been conscious of starting in the first place. Since Karkat's changes were so subtle, especially for him, Dave could not call Terezi's actions a response, but in the same way her jokes and teasing began to lose their affection. Mutual respect bled. The slope was so gradual that Dave did not even notice when he himself realized that Karkat and Terezi were going to break up.

Dave was not sure what to expect when the same finally occurred to Terezi. He wasn't even sure how much money he'd put on a Troll breakup being similar to a Human, but he figured that so long as it didn't involve a fight to the death or something manic like that, he could probably take it. On the other hand, Dave also figured that Terezi wasn't going to come to him for a slap on the back or an in-depth discussion on whether or not alien dudes be whack, so he got ready for anything. Unfortunately, he had forgotten that he was dealing with a lawyer who liked to be sure she had all her cards in hand well ahead of her court date. She had slipped up beside him as they worked on one of their murals, and then had started talking: cagey, trickster-like, as though every word coming out of her mouth was a secret part of a goodbye prank directed at her soon-to-be ex. Or, at least, that was how it had seemed at first. After a while, Dave had started to pick up a vibe that maybe she was being genuine, if a little weird, or maybe that she hoped the scheme might have a genuine aftermath. Dave realized that he had taught her too well for him to be certain. Either way, Dave knew he did not like the direction the conversation seemed to be inevitably heading, and Dave was going to have to do something about it...

Unfortunately, the inevitable had a way of being put on hold, especially in the Lab. Dave knew that better than anyone but Aradia. In a moment of shrieking force, the conversation with Terezi had to be set aside, so that Dave could deal with Jack. With any luck, Dave could ensure that she would not even notice the lacuna.

Not that the conversation didn't continue to boil over in his mind, as he waited for Aradia to catch up to him. _Idiot!_ he scolded himself. Dave tried not to show his frustration, even if he was alone. But he forced himself to think about the conversation, and not just because he wanted to plan a good way to deflect it. It was something his late Sprite/Beta-Self had taught him near the end of the game. His feathery alt-self had recommended that, whenever he went back to change the present, he should keep the soon-to-be-repaired timeline in mind, as if the repairs were guaranteed to happen. That would make the repaired timeline more real than the broken one. Otherwise, Davesprite had warned, the broken one was going to eat at him: it would have him wondering who was who, which timeline was really alpha, and other thorny existential distractions that he did not have time to ponder. Wanting to get back to an awkward conversation with Terezi might have struck Dave like a stupid goal to shoot for, but if it meant avoiding the opposite, Dave was willing to call it a win.

At present, he stood on one of the spare meteors of the veil, a half-hour in the past, and shadow-boxed to vent his mixed frustrations. _I am a goddamned..._ Jab. _Na?e._ Hook. _Idio-_

_Clang._

Dave looked up at Aradia past his fist caught in her grip, and she looked back with her usual blank of emotions.

"...Ow." he greeted.

Aradia's only response was to say: "Day thirty-eight, hour nine."

"Nah, I'm not doin' it this time," Dave said. "I just didn't keep track, because I don't want to think of myself as a number." Aradia did not respond to that, at least not overtly. In spite, Dave felt like he was on the receiving end of a sarcastic glare. "...Yeah, I'm day thirty-eight, hour nine."

It was an important distinction. Dave and the-Aradia-in-front-of-him had come from the lab when it had been thirty-eight days and nine hours since the Humans had arrived in the Troll session, but they weren't alone. There were probably two or three copies of themselves running around in some other part of the Incipisphere, not to forget the ones back at the lab. This Aradia could have been from the future, or could have come from the past without him, and talking strategy to the wrong person could lead to a beta timeline far faster than Jack could gut them.

Since this was the right Aradia, Dave felt he had to start with the critical question. "So did he find us?" he asked. Dave had not had time to confirm on his way out: survival might have depended on them hitting the past very quickly.

"Attack us, yes. Find us, no," Aradia said, and Dave let out a sigh of relief. There was no sense in playing the coolkid on something so drastic. "I'm not sure how it played out yet, but he was nowhere near the meteor Lab at the time" Aradia said. "I'm running what limited information I have right now."

"Did you see how it hit the others?" Dave asked.

"I was in the main lab," Aradia said. "_tavr0s: dead. equius: dying. kanaya has a w0und in a maj0r artery and is n0t receiving pr0per treatment since shes underestimating the danger. shell be dead within the next few minutes, I thi-_"

"Hey!" Dave cut in, trying to sound like he only sort of cared. "Past tense."

Aradia shrugged. "Have it your way. Considering we're in the past all of this has yet again to happen, I'd say the tense is wrong in a different way. Which would you prefer?"

"Well I've got a funny idea. Let's try Door #3 and pretend that maybe it's not going to happen at all?" Dave looked her in the eyes, but got no reaction, and all she could make of his was his shades. "No dead Tavros, no dead Equius, no Maryam suffering to death in graceful, emo Anne Ricey silence. I think that sounds like a good idea. Actually, a lot seems like a good idea when it means nobody dies."

Aradia seemed to decide that if Dave was going to ramble, she was going to continue her list. "_j0hns c0nditi0n is g0ing t0 dev0lve int0 a c0ma but hell be all right assuming pr0per medical care_"

"Oh yeah, definitely with the proper medical care, when he's the closest thing we have to a doctor." Beyond a frown, Aradia ignored Dave's tone. Sick of their conversation, Dave glanced to one side to look out over the horizon of their small platform. Beyond, hidden by a mess of other floating rocks, Dave could just make out the Lab, sitting peacefully and still intact for the next twenty-seven minutes, twelve seconds. It was "triply safe," Aradia liked to say. There were sensors planted all around it, two very peculiar meteors in orbit, and most importantly, the Heroes of Time were on guard.

"Did you see anything?" Aradia asked.

"No, I was in Terezi's room," Dave replied, kicking up dirt with the toe of his shoe.

"And she...?"

Damn, Dave hated working with robots. Not that he had a very wide perspective on them or anything, but this one always seemed to be able to guess what he was thinking no matter how cool he kept up. Probably scanning his perspiration or something. Calculating his thoughts. Dave had a great _Forbidden Planet_ segue he wanted to make, but part way through putting it together, he remembered that she'd see through that, too. He kept his eyes on the Lab, mostly to avoid looking her in the eyes. "What's the organ that goes right here?" he asked, pointing to her a particular spot of her abdomen.

Though they had lowered their hands, Dave's fist was still more or less in contact with Aradia's palm, and she closed her hand about his. Her hand was warm, through some ungodly heating system Equius had installed for some reason Dave did not really want to think about. "You're allowed to... to be upset, you know," she said in one of her off-tones: not quite the intended comfort but all the same not a computer's synth. It was some remnant of her own voice, forced through voice box and ghost combined: a voice that had been forced to struggle free from the clawed feet of the Horrorterrors over the course of the game. "Besides," Aradia said, "you don't know what happens to them. Where they go. Does... does that help?" Dave looked back. "I like to think they all get together in the Dream Bubbles still," Aradia said, almost smiling. "I think they're probably happy!"

"Yeah, happy with Rose's old backers, sure." Dave rolled his eyes. "We know how that played out." Aradia opened her mouth, as it were, but Dave shook his head. "Look, it's a bad day. And to be honest, it's worse to leave them dying than dead, okay? They never _get_ it. That doesn't mean I'm going to turn into a weepy faucet about it. Would you?"

Aradia responded only in the slightest way, by gently squeezing his fist, and Dave replied only with a brush of his thumb. As Aradia should not have and did not expect any more from Dave Strider, it was there that she that broke their contact. Dave turned about. "C'mon," he said. "Let's find out what did this, and I can go back to having boobytrapped chats with Pyrope and you can get back to whatever stuff robot Troll girls do for fun."

"Boobytrapped?" Aradia said. "That's one way to put it." She too turned back to the Lab, but then added, almost conversationally: "I was studying the archaeological relevance of outdoor load gapers used in Troll society before the invention of plumbing."

Dave blinked, and then concluded that: "...You're joking. That's what this is. This is you breaking down and finally telling a joke, and it's coming out like Troll Ben Stein thanks to that sexy answering machine voice your boyfriend gave you."

Aradia shrugged. "You'd be surprised how many interesting finds you can find in an outhouse. Trolls essentially treated them like waste deposit bins as well as load gapers, so their artefacts aren't just preserved in the earth, but tend to be chronologically layered."

If Dave had not been so flabbergasted, he might have had trouble keeping a straight face. "You're telling me that... I'd be surprised what you'd find in Troll shit."

"Yes."

"I believe you."

"You should," she said. And then, after a beat and a straight face, Aradia's voice box let out a burst of static that almost sounded like a snort of laughter.

Dave was incredulous. "The hell was that?" he asked. Aradia just shook her head and pulled her music boxes from her inventory. "Hey, c'mon!" Dave said. "The hell was that?" But she had already disappeared. Dave huffed but followed, and soon they were fast-forwarding time, each in their own bubble, until Aradia came to a dead stop and Dave landed a moment later. It was exactly two minutes before the blast, or as Aradia continued to put it:

"Day twenty-two, hour nine," she repeated as he arrived. He wobbled, trying to find his feet on an rock that had begun to spin as they had left.

"Still me, Aradia," he said, stomping his foot to bring the thing to a halt. It did not.

"Just being sure," she said. She raised her left arm slightly and fired a burst of flame from the palm, which slowed the meteor and all but threw Dave to the ground. As he recovered, he looked to his partner and found that the colour of her eyes had flipped as she took to scanning the horizon.

"There he is," she observed. "And there we are." She pointed into the distance. Dave had to set the magnify feature of his shades to see a thing, but soon he too could make out another Dave and another Aradia in a fight against what appeared to be nothing but empty space. Watching carefully, they both independently took out their time travelling tools and made the slightest adjustment, causing Jack to slip back into view. Noir had developed a number of nasty abilities from his prototypings in the month they had been attempting to corral him. At first his powers had just been flight, teleportation and sheer game power, but by virtue of either the Queen's ring or Bec's powers, he had begun to wield a partial form of Breath and Light, and most damaging of all, Time. One trick he had developed early on was the ability to consign himself to an individual's time stream, which would ensure that he fought opponents alone if only for a few critical seconds. Luckily, the Heroes of Time had worked out a way to keep in sync with him, but it raised all sorts of ugly questions for the future, like if their friends would ever be able to come against him.

"That's an early one," Dave decided after watching a few blows.

"Day five, hour sixteen," Aradia replied. "It's early, but at the same time, it's one of our first battles with no - _ribbit_ - need to go back and correct ourselves."

"Well congrats to us," Dave said. "Because now we're gonna have to."

Dave watched every moment of the fight he had already fought, not wanting to miss any important details on one hand, and not wanting to be upstaged by Aradia's perfect survey on the other. It did not take him long to figure out that trying to keep up with a girl with a computer complimenting her brain was boring as all hell, and he was a hairsbreadth from weighing just how ironic it would be to ask about the contents of underground Troll shit piles when it finally happened. Past-Aradia broke away in what was accidentally the direction of the Lab. Beams of green power lanced to follow her, darted past, and soon both of the observers understood.

Dave adjusted his shades. "'Hey, John,'" he dictated to no one in particular, "'Check it out. Got a riddle for you. What's got two legs, two wings, one arm and can kill four of us by _missing_?'"

"Vriska could fly, once," Aradia murmured. Dave looked up at his partner, who shook herself in a very living way, as if from sleep. When her eyes returned to the lab, she was again fully alert. "_sens0rs are facing away on 0n f0ur-0ne f0ur-three and five-0h_" she said, referring to the meteors floating near the lab. "That might account for our missing it. Someone should have double-checked their calibration this morning."

"Yeah, let's go with sensors," Dave said. "Fucking sensors," Dave said, "always failing, giving us bad data, making it impossible for us check the Lab for giant smoking holes before we run back home for the night."

Dave could not tell if Aradia ignored him or not, but she continued her report. "Jack's breaking off," she said. Dave remembered well enough. "We've left. _i'm running the data_"

"You do that," Dave said. "I know when I'm not needed. It's Data Time, time for the cool guy to step aside while the computer does what computers do best:"

"Done," Aradia said, taking out her music boxes.

"...Black. Fucking. Magic," Dave concluded, though he took out his timetables as well, and reached to turn them back.

"Wait!" Aradia's hand touched down on the nearest timetable. "Something's..." She held up that same hand for silence, and then cocked her head. Dave did the same, but for all his effort could not hear anything out in the void. As Aradia focused on the damaged Lab, Dave caught sight of something else odd in the distance: Jack had stopped his retreat. He too was listening to a distant sound. It was only when Dave turned back, and looked _past_ the Lab, that he understood what was happening. The outer edge of the session was beginning to blacken, as though someone was slowly spilling ink onto the outer edge of a glass ball. It spread, and the world around them seemed to darken, then harden, and before the shade had reached the opposite pole, the session began to split at the edge of reality.

Dave had seen it all before. "'Radia," he said, the words coming quick and urgent. "Lalonde: did you see her before you left?"

Aradia lowered her eyes, which were working another scan of the world around. "Yes. She had just stepped into the room. She was fine. Just fine." Her mind on two topics at once, Aradia pointed to the space just behind the Lab. "Look there," she said.

"How 'fine' was she?" Dave asked. He could just make the thing out with his shades: a bright speck of light in the distance, like a star, white-hot.

"She was tired, but nothing immediately worse than that." Aradia said, though she had to repeat herself, as the sound she and Jack had heard at a distance reached them in full. Dave knew it as well. That shrieking, awful sound: drilling at first, and then rending, as the session itself was ripped apart by the seams. The light in the distance began to spread into a crack that split like glass in a jagged path that would soon spread along the whole of the game's sphere. Jack went to investigate.

Dave barred his teeth at Jack. "Fine, huh?" he called to Aradia. "That means all it takes for her to bust _the entire session_ like an egg all over the eldritch floor is three dead friends." Well, Kanaya would be dead, but John would look dead and Dave had outright disappeared from a room that had been nearly eradicated by an energy beam, so what was Rose supposed to think?

"Can you blame her?" Aradia shouted back.

"Considering she's doing _this_?" Dave spread his arms wide to the crack in the distance, though he soon had to shield his eyes. "The last time this happened, I died! And when I woke up I was nearly pancaked by a thirty-foot, grimdark blacksmith!" The major brunt of the sound - the sound of someone's spell boring through the session walls - passed, but Dave continued to shout. "Whoops, three friends died! Better _nuke my own house_."

Aradia watched the crack spread, eyes unblinking and unprotected. "...You've got a point," she said at last. "If Lalonde is going to go neutron the moment the wrong person or people dies, she's a liability."

"Glad we can be honest to each other about it," Dave quipped.

"More glad you can," Aradia replied, honest in a different way.

Dave knew what she meant, and groaned into his hand. "Look... Do you think it's anyone, or just us and Kanaya?"

But before Aradia could reply, the two of them were interrupted. Near its point of origin, the crack began to split wide, like a jagged eyelid. Though the skies of the game session were now dark and had once seemed transparent, past blinding light and painful tears Dave could see something being exposed beyond the crack. He turned away at once. He knew better than to stare at something like that, at the eldritch things beyond Human and Troll understanding. But when he turned away from horror and terror, he found surprise lurking at his back.

"Morning, Strider," said Rose.

Dave swatted errantly at Aradia, who turned about. He was not at all relieved when he found that she too could see the new arrival. Dave liked his hallucinations the way he liked his poor metaphors: kept to himself.

There was no doubt in his mind that this Rose was a hallucination. Firstly: logic. Secondly: the blanche-white eyes, no pupils. Third: the horrible amount of blood coming from her Grimdark belly, straining through that mangled Squiddle icon of hers. Despite the wound, this Rose kept nonchalant, with one hand hanging innocently behind her back and her body held lax instead of with Rose's poise. Dave was willing to call that 3-b on Dave's Sicknasty-Official List of Reasons Not to Trust Creepy Ghost Roses. Moreover, Dave could still hear things from behind him, no matter how dangerous it would have been to look. Not long after the Horrorterror beyond got its first chance to look in to the Incipisphere, the lab had cracked like a bomb and Dave began to hear another sound with which he was familiar. It was a strange, screaming patch of white noise that had followed the real Lalonde around like a static puppy when she had gone Grimdark in their original game, though Dave could barely make it out over the sound of the session's rending shell. Without a doubt, the real, hopefully-beta Rose had gone for the Thorns of Oglogoth and had gone after Jack. That was bad, but not surprising. That just left the matter of this one.

Just to rub it in, Dave noticed that the hallucination was smiling: indeed, not just smiling but grinning, as if being there and confounding him was tickling on the edge of the world's greatest gag and all she had to do to seal it was to keep quiet. Even Rose had a better sense of humour than that. Certainly a better poker face.

"So who the hell are you?" Dave asked, though he was not sure if it was really to the hallucination or more to Aradia.

To his surprise, the vision answered in a sense, by pointing behind him. Instinctively, Dave started to glance over his shoulder but he was stopped mid-motion as Aradia cuffed him with the side of her hand. "It's trying to get you to look at the Horrorterror!" Aradia hissed at him. Dave sucked a breath through his teeth and nodded a brief thanks.

"Oh, I get it:" he said as he turned back to the false Rose. "...you're a _dick_. Why didn't you just say so? Sorry, if I'm ruining your lunch break here, but we'd rather not go dancing off the sanity train. Let me take a shot in the dark, here," he said to the doppelganger. "You're a part of Psychopus, the million-legged clown back there." The false Rose smirked. "And you're responsible for my friend there, I guess?" he asked, pointing back toward the beta Rose.

"Maybe it's the other way around?" said the ghost. Her voice sounded just like Rose's, if someone else was using it.

Aradia was also keeping her eye on the more immediate threat of beta Rose, just on the periphery of her vision. "We should go," she said.

"Gimmie time," Dave begged, straight-faced and looking forward. Personally, he agreed with his partner. Indeed, his hands had not both left his timetables even after the strange Rose's arrival, but something about this ghost was making him curious. He had Aradia had agreed on another point, after all: Rose was a liability, and just once - _just once_ - Dave wanted to believe that they could get out of this whole rat trap with Jack without Lalonde losing her shit again. If this fake had been sent by one of the Horrorterrors, it might have answers. "Here's an idea!" he called to the double. "Let's try this again, and don't be so fucking literal! ...Who..." he spelled out: "...the hell... are _you_?"

The rending sound began to approach in a sense, as the crack started to split through the skies directly above. Beyond, Dave could feel a thousand eyes peering in, as the gods watched a Servant of Terrors fight the unusual Jack Noir. Whether or not the beasts behind those eyes provided Rose with any additional assistance, Dave did not know. All he wanted to do was go back and set everything right.

"Dave." Aradia tapped his arm. "Look down," she said. "Careful," she cautioned, and pointed to a spot between their feet. Dave looked, and there he saw a strange stalk-plant beginning to grow. Just like last time. Lalonde was predictable even when she fiddled with chaos. Though the plant was alien to him, Dave had seen Rose cause ones like it to sprout in the old session, as well. He knew what was next. The Horrorterrors were in, and now everything left in the Incipisphere was going to change. By the sounds of things, Rose had not bought victory for the price, yet again. "Dave, there is at least one hundred-storey tentacle god at our backs, there are eldritch plants growing at our feet, and if we so much as look in any other direction, that would be very, very bad. _we have to g0_"

"I don't want to be here any longer than you do, gal," Dave assured. "Now, I'm gonna ask you for a favour, okay? If you don't like my explanation when we get back, you get two. Just give me a chance to talk to this zombie clone."

"...You get one minute," Aradia said. "Or I'll drag you back."

"Deal."

Rose's double laughed, and then spoke again: "You know what, Strider?" she said. "It's actually good to see you again." And as she spoke, she scuffed her foot in the layer of tight-packed grey sand on top of the meteor. From there, she rather quickly draw a pattern with her foot, and then stepped back.

"What's this?' Dave asked her. She had drawn a symmetrical pattern in the ground: three lines spreading either out or toward a single circle at the symbol's base, with two lines splayed back and one straight.

"You asked," she replied. " This..." she said, deliberately touching the centre line with the toe of her shoe, "...is me."

"...Well, I'm glad we got that all cleared up," Dave said. He committed the symbol to memory but was otherwise not going to give it much concern. "You having fun with the plants?" he asked. He was not sure how else to approach the question of the thing's motives without it catching on to what he was doing.

"Don't be a pain, Strider," said the ghost. "I know what you're going for, I just know what isn't going to hurt me to say."

"And you had been doing such a good job of being genre aware," Aradia muttered.

"Hey, I've still got this," Dave said. But before he could explain how, a black-green fireball swept above their heads as Rose and Jack clashed above. The ghost alone watched them pass.

"Heh," said the ghost, which was decidedly un-Rose-like. "Isn't that funny? Last I checked, you were the type that'dve thrown yourself out there. Be a real Knight, and get yourself gutted all over again. Except now you're outta bodies and it's just _too hard_ to help your friend."

_Oh, fuck you you little-_ "Funny," Dave said instead. "You're not even wasting our time pretending you're Rose."

"I might as well be."

"Uh huh," Dave said. "Well that fills me up. You want any vague and pointless bits of information, Aradia?"

"I'll survive," she said.

Dave smirked. "Awesome. ...Fifty-eight, fifty-nine... G'bye," he said with a wave to the ghost. Aradia hit her music boxes, and Dave was moments behind her.

But this time, it was at least one moment too many. In the split second after Aradia left, but before Dave could follow, the plant struck. It jammed a thorn into his ankle, sending a jolt of intense pain up Dave's leg, which began to spasm. He fell to his good leg, which rapidly lost its strength alongside. The rest of his body, from the tips of his fingers to the tip of his tongue, began to slowly go numb, and his hand fell flat against the timetables and pressed them to the ground under his weight. In the distance, Dave could see a tinge of green light swell at the edge of his vision, and could hear the sound of Rose, screaming. Still able to hold up his upper body, Dave called out his half-sword and severed the plant just above the root, though the sword slipped from his grip as he swung.

"So," said the ghost. "What you really want to ask me what it is I want. What we want. Let's be honest, huh? Well. We want a lot of things, Strider." What strength was still holding Dave up gave out of his arms. When he fell back, his numb body hit the ground in a strange way. It was as though the surface of the asteroid was beginning to give below him, as though the very rock were shifting around him, swallowing him up. "No one ever wants the same things as everyone else, do they? Not even us." She knelt down, and gently pressed on Dave's yielding body until he was flat on his back.

"You know," Dave said, probably slurring more than he wanted to admit, "real Rose isn't usually this eager to get on top of me."

"Cute," she said, as she took to her feet. Then, she reached out with her foot, which Dave suddenly realized was bare, and filthy, and pushed up on his chin. Dave was forced to look up and back, and so caught sight of the wide gulf that hanged there, spreading through the sky above him. "Me, I like to think this whole thing a lot more personal than it is for the rest. That's why I'm the immediate threat. Get it? You should. You're the one who's seen it all." After a moment of thought, it added: "...How about you see a bit more?"

The ghost pushed with her foot, and Dave's head was tilted further back and, again, the rock shifted away, until Dave was staring straight into the yawning gap. Beyond, he saw a great black space, empty and filled to overflowing. Beyond, something began to move, to reach in, and somehow most offensive of all, to enter.

Dave Strider balked, or at least he did at the core of his personality, yet untouched by what he was beginning to see. This was no way to go. Dave Strider was not going to go gibbering off into that good night just because a zombie best friend tapped him on the jaw. Trying to outpace the contradictions his eyes were feeding him, Dave reached inside. He didn't know where the timetables were any more, but he didn't quite need them. Not for all his powers. Not if he wanted to... _stop_.

Of course, there was little he could do without Aradia once he _had_ stopped, but still...

...Dave recoiled the moment he returned to the present. Whatever it was he had seen before freezing himself in time caught up to him as the seconds began to flow again. His arms and legs thrashed out at the bodies he felt crowding him, and he began to hyperventilate, his lungs soon forcing out more air than they took in. He did not even notice, at first, that it was strange that he could move again at all. Hands held him down, somewhat: warm hands, and one that slapped him across the forehead. A strange, soothing sensation accompanied the pain of that slap, and for a moment, all Dave could do was focus on it until his breathing returned to normal, his thrashing stopped, and his mind settled. It took him a moment to realize where he was, and that the false Rose was gone. It took him a while longer to realize the Horrorterror was gone as well.

As he truly came into himself, Dave also realized he was not wearing his shades, but quickly found them presented to him from a grey hand.

"Here, you big baby," said a familiar voice. Dave snapped on his shades, and tried to look at Terezi only sidelong to stay aloof. She did not seem much impressed. She was dishevelled, wearing a ratty old t-shirt he knew she used as pyjamas, and still dripping with sopor in places. As Dave came to his senses, he realized he was in her bedroom. Aradia was just beside him.

"Thank you," she said to Terezi. "We'll be going back now."

"Whatever," Terezi grumbled. "Just get out of my room." She turned away, not further acknowledging Dave.

Aradia hefted Dave to his feet without much ceremony, set his arm over her shoulder and led him out of the room. He found that he had some trouble moving his legs, and was only willing to keep up if only because Aradia was making it clear that he had to or she would leave him behind.

"When are we?" he hissed to her, though his tongue felt heavy. Only his head was still clear.

"A week ahead," she said. "Day forty-four. I've already gone back to deal with Jack's attack, but I couldn't exactly walk in on the Terezi of the present while you were having a conversation with her. Don't worry, though. Everyone's fine. We can probably assume that no one so much as blinked."

"And what does Terezi have to do with-"

"You were losing your Mind," Aradia interrupted. "I wasn't sure how bad it would be when I brought you back from your Time Freeze, so I went to her before bringing you back. It looks like I was right." Her synthesizer made a sound like - but in quite a few obvious ways unlike - she was clicking her tongue. "I almost hated to bring you back," she added. "You looked very peaceful."

"More like dead, you mean," Dave said. Noticed her volume, Dave made a point to keep his voice down as well.

"I don't think she was very happy I woke her," Aradia admitted, returning to the subject of Terezi. "But weird thing: she didn't ask why you had ended up like you did. Have you told her what's going on?" Dave shook his head, but Aradia had no other explanation.

"So give me the full details," Dave asked as they walked. Together, the two of them began their walk to the roof. Dave knew the route well, as he had often had to take or fly past Terezi's infinite sets of stairs to get out of the Lab in an emergency. "What happened after I turned off my clock?"

"Well, I had noticed you weren't with me immediately..."

Aradia replied with the full narrative: how she had returned to the scene of the incident and found Dave's temporally paused body looking like it had been half-swallowed by the meteor, which had seemed to melt in the area around his body and thrashed around him as if in violent tides. "The false Rose was saying that something was 'Awful,' but I was not really in the mood to eavesdrop."

"I 'preciate."

Aradia had engaged the ghost, who had proven far more physical able than the real Rose, exasperated by the fact that Aradia had been forced to limit her field of vision to avoid the Horrorterror. All Aradia had needed was a moment to grab Dave's body and escape, but the ghost had stretched the fight out as long as possible, wrestling with his robot partner hand-in-hand before suddenly vanishing. Aradia admitted that she was too hasty in how she tried to get back to Dave's body the moment her opponent had vanished. As a result, she had almost been taken out by Jack, who must have come to see what all the fuss was about. Dave asked Aradia if she knew what had happened to the beta Rose that had summoned the Horrorterror, but Aradia could only shake her head.

Aradia continued. "Of course, I know how to deal with Jack," she said. "At least enough to run away from him, for once, and I made it before he saw the Lab. But when I reached your body, the false Rose reappeared. Only momentarily. And she signed me a message, in ASL." Aradia demonstrated the signs: "She said, 'Be seeing you.' And she held on 'see' for a moment." The sign for "see" involved the eyes, and Aradia flicked hers to bright, white lights to substitute the ghost's.

"There's an Alternian Sign Language?" Dave asked, but as he didn't really care, he changed the subject. He filled Aradia in on the limited scene she had missed, and the ghost's line about its mysterious 'we' not agreeing with one another. "So what are we thinking here?" Dave asked as he wrapped up. "You think that really was an avatar of one of the Trans-Plutonian Squiddles?"

"That seemed to be the only question it was happy to answer," Aradia admitted.

"Yeah," Dave agreed. "Even if all it said was..." He drew the three-pronged glyph in the air.

Aradia nodded. "I'll start checking our Internets," she said. Dave was willing to let her have it. Aradia's "checking the two internets" was nothing like a meat person's.

Dave tried to think of something he could do to help out. "And I'll... I'll hit Rose with 'physician, heal thyself' until she sits down on her own couch? Fuck, I don't know."

"_0ne step at a time_" Aradia advised. As she did so, she came to the topmost step of Terezi's stairs, and walked out onto the roof of the Lab. Dave followed after her, and looked past the edge and above. There, high above them, orbited one half of their second line of defence. It was a small, purple meteor, modelled as a facsimile of Derse. On the opposite side of the Lab, far below their feet at present, was the false Prospit. To Dave, they now seemed more necessary than they had in some time. Oh, Dave had seen what Rose had done to their game session. So had John, and Jade, and all the Trolls watching from their computer screens. When they had united in the Trolls' session, they had decided that they had to do something to prevent it from happening again. Talking to Rose was only half of it. Before they had fallen lax and all their plans had swirled down the metaphorical drain, the fifteen of them had put all their energies into creating those two rocks with all their game knowledge. The false Derse and false Prospit kept their sleep dreamless, and keep them all out of the dream bubbles in the realm of the Horrorterrors. Safe.

"Hey," Aradia said, as she, too, looked up at their work in the sky. "I know you promised me an explanation for your stunt, but I do... I think I get it. I know you don't want to lose Rose."

"You don't get it," Dave said, and he laughed. "Maybe the other Trolls, not you. Let's be serious here. But that's okay. You can pretend."

Aradia's voice box harrumph-crackled. "Even so. But we still should have left in the first place. You can judge all you want, but I don't want you dead. You saw beta Rose try against Jack, Grimdark and all. She lost. He's not playing by the rules, so we need to break the rules in lock-step or we lose the game. You're the only one I can rely on to do that right now."

"Hey, don't think I don't get it," Dave replied, not breaking his look on the moon. "Who was the one who locked himself in time with no way to get out on his own?"

Aradia smiled, though Dave only caught it out of the corner of his eye. "Fair enough," she said. "But I think I'll leave you here. You have to get back to your 'boobytrapped chats with Pyrope.'"

Dave frowned. "Right. Well!" he said, trying to fake amused, "you have fun with all your Troll shit about Troll shit."

"Thank you, I will," Aradia said, and she waited for him to take his leave. Robots could always afford to wait - Dave wasn't particularly fond of them for that, either. Dave took out his timetables, but hesitated to leave, as he was not quite in any hurry to rush into a loaded Terezi. Still, he had an image to maintain, and left before it became a thing. He stopped, practiced and proven, with two minutes to spare before he would have to be in Terezi's room to swap out for himself. The false Prospit hung high above him, and Aradia was gone.

Normally, when Dave returned to the Lab, it was to collapse into bed and sleep until his alarm went off just a handful of hours later, screeching S Club 7 CDs at him until he couldn't possibly lie there any longer (some days he would sing along, instead: had to mix it up for Jade and John before they started to get ideas about where he stood). Some days, if he was feeling gnarly after the fight with Jack, he would sleep in the shower instead. Today he did not much have that option. Dave mussed up his hair, hoping to disguise the sweat before he remembered that he was talking about Terezi, and the conversation came back to him. Dave shook his head, wishing double that he could just up and go to bed, but he figured it might be better to nip the entire awkward subject in the bud. He'd be honest, he figured. Terezi'd understand. After all, it seemed like sometime between here and there, he was gonna be honest, so why not now?

Ready as he was going to be, Dave headed back toward the lab, cool as he could muster.

* * *

><p>Rose entered the main Lab half-asleep, but otherwise composed. She had not been sleeping well lately, what with Karkat running her through the ringer on "Imp Flushes" for the "Basement Reclamation Program." Today she was off of both flushing and data work, and so she had celebrated with the traditional Human bout of oversleeping. Rose was not fond of the Imp flushes, which was a polite way of saying that she would have rather tried to gain levels by murdering Karkat the next time he gave an order, or perhaps Eridan, the next time he tried to hate-flirt with her. Sadly, that would pretty much be the next time either of them were so much as in the same room with her. At least Eridan left off if Vriska or Tavros was there to dissuade him. Still, Rose wondered if Karkat suspected why Eridan kept volunteering for her shift. By and large, Rose did her best to simply ignore Eridan, though that somewhat involved dreaming elaborate fantasies where Karkat and Eridan hooked up black and made each other's lives awful for one another, but after a while, Rose realized that that would just make Eridan happy and that was not her business. Nuisances aside, Rose had gained exactly one level from the flushes, mostly thanks to the experience she had been sitting on from her session. It had been the closest Rose had felt to 'good' in days.<p>

Rose had had one other bright moment in the past few weeks, namely the night before. Though she had to admit it was one of the reasons she had overslept that morning. That noon. Whichever. Rose had been on a flush the night before, and the Lab had thrown salt on her wounds by making sure Nepeta's quarters had been freezing cold. Kanaya had found her shivering on her return, and had checked on her condition. Her so-called friend had then driven Rose into legitimate worry by "diagnosing" her with some horrible Troll disease. Kanaya had held up the act for almost half an hour before Rose caught on to the symptoms getting sillier and more outlandish. When she realized the game was up, Kanaya stuck around when Rose went for hot chocolate and mint, and their conversation had turned into one about real Troll diseases, the threat of communicability and the ethics of quarantine over culling. Rose did not regret choosing stimulating conversation over sleep, or at least not so much as... well, she supposed sometimes you reap what you sow. But speaking of reaping what you sow, Kanaya had not yet apologized for her prank, and so Rose had half a mind to work revenge into casual conversation before the day was up: plans which were quickly derailed.

Rose found the main lab to be in its usual late-morning mess. While there was an active patrol in the Underlab today, it was ostensibly Dave's shift, which meant the Trolls on shift were working alone. Kanaya smiled in greeting from her computer chair. Tavros was busy doing data work, as was Karkat himself, but neither seemed to be paying all that much attention to their screens. When he wasn't being actively distracted by Vriska, Tavros was sneaking glances over at Eridan. Karkat was just straight-up watching the program on the TV screen, and was making his disapproval known.

"Oh no!" called a high-pitched voice from the screen. "If Plumbthroat steals the ballots, he'll _ruin_ the Model UN!"

Rose stopped walking towards Kanaya.

"It's like I'm being keelhauled," Karkat griped. "This is scraping the skin of my back with barnacles made of nostalgia and filling my wounds with salt water and saccharine. Both of you are going to pay for this. My foot's going to be so far up your excretion gap, you'll taste heel."

A Human hand appeared over the back of the couch to flip Karkat off. Rose approached the couch warily, and found Jade and John watching from there.

"You're watching Season 1," she said after a moment.

"Yup!" Jade confirmed.

"...Why?"

Rose looked up at the screen in some horror, and glaring neon and anime sheen stared back at her. The main cast was gathering on Main Street to discuss the plot, as ever, and Rose was ashamed to say that she could name every one. The kindly Butterscotch. The zealous Mint. Over there was Creamsickle, who had too much imagination. On the right was Rocky Road, who in localization had been made a token (mottled) black boy. And there was first season lead, whom the first season's localization team had given a voice shrill enough to shatter plate glass: Raspberry. Oh yes. Rose knew even the original Squiddles.

"Do they ever stop smiling?" John asked, who looked like he would never stop smiling, himself. Rose could only imagine he was discovering his televised utopia, but it was hard to tell with John.

"Not until they get cancelled and handed to a team that's actually heard of facial expressions," Rose said, still not sure she was really awake.

"We had better go!" shrieked Raspberry. "But before we do, let's all-" The audio skipped as it fell into a stock clip: "-hoooooold hands for:"

"SQUIDDLE! POWER!"

Right. That. Rose rubbed at her temples to dispel the effect the flashing lights had had on her vision, but could not help but watch afterwards, hypnotised. This was definitely twisted enough to be one of her nightmares. Hopefully the Horrorterrors had broken past the False Derse and were slowly dragging her into insanity?

Rose was shaken out of her snark several minutes later by what sounded like an explosion above them. They all jumped in their spots and looked straight up, no one with more urgency than Aradia, who had been sitting quietly plugged into her computer. They kept listening until the sound of voices came from just below them in the transport hub. A second pause followed, and then the noise picked up at full force right in the middle of the lab.

"Stop running away from me!" Terezi appeared in the room a second after Dave - which did not even seem particularly safe. Dave flicked his eyes about the room, as if taking stock of his audience. Terezi only had to yell a few more words before Jade reached the pause button on her remote, since the giggling of a half-dozen Squiddles seemed more than a little impolite.

"I'm not running away from you!" Dave replied, but Terezi was fast on his tail.

"No, you're just trying to get in public where you think I won't _shout_ at you!" When he tried to object, Terezi cut him straight off: "Seer of Mind!" Rose was not entirely sure how honest Terezi was being about her powers, but was not about to second-guess Terezi as she struck out, fists trembling. Rose had seen many threatening things in the game, but nothing had struck her as dangerous as Terezi did at that moment, as she corralled Dave against a desk with her one finger. Terezi and Dave were both covered in dirt and dried paint, but Terezi emanated pure Troll rage in every muscle, and though she was bare handed Rose would not have said much for Dave's chances if she decided to attack him. A teal streak cut through the grime on one side of her face.

Terezi jabbed Dave in the chest with her finger. "You're a dick, Dave Strider. You don't know when to keep your mouth shut. You want to turn your stupid pink tail and run? Fine! But this isn't over. You just wish it was. _1 W1LL M4K3 YOU HURT FOR TH1S_" Terezi reached up to adjust her glasses, though Rose saw it was just an excuse to wipe at her nose and sniff back tears. As if worried that Dave or someone else had heard her, she immediately lashed out: "You couldn't even pretend! You couldn't even pretend to care how I felt, because you're too busy pretending that _you_ don't! Who does that?" She swept an errant look about the room, as though demanding an answer. "_1TS OV3R_" she said to Dave. She took a step back, as if to turn, but then stalled. When no counterattack came, verbal or otherwise, Terezi left the room as she had come, in greater fury.

The room was left in silence. Rose took a check of the place and was appalled to see first Vriska, who looked like it was Twelfth Perigree's Eve, and then Karkat, who looked even happier. Dave, on the other hand, having said nothing in his defence, and added nothing now. He cast a meaningful look towards Aradia, and then a peculiar one to Rose that she could not make out with his shades in the way.

"Oh my _god_ Strider!" Vriska said. "What did you _do_?"

Dave broke eye contact, to remove his shades (he kept his eyes shut) and rub them against the hem of his shirt. When he had replaced them, he announced "I'm out," and headed for the transportalizer.

"Dave, wait!" Jade called. She scrambled over the back of the couch, past Rose.

"Yeah, dude!" John said, following after. Dave ignored both of them, but they followed him through the portal. The room was again silent, except for Vriska who was cackling to herself. Rose turned her astonished face up to Kanaya, but Kanaya was already glaring at Karkat, who had taken John's spot on the couch and had restarted the DVD. Kanaya got to her feet and slapped Karkat across the shoulder.

"What?" he said. He looked from Kanaya to Rose "What's with those looks?"

"Aren't you going to... I don't know...?" Kanaya suggested.

"What? ...Terezi?" He looked back and forth between them. "You gotta be kidding me. Gonna play a big joke on poor Karkat, huh?" His sarcasm was evident, but when they refused to budge, he at least admitted to it. "Look, all right? You want me to go up there and go 'There, there you big blubbering idiot,' right? But guess what? Terezi _doesn't wanna talk to me._ She and I have been on the rocks for weeks now. Big, sharp pointy rocks!"

"Weeks?" Rose asked, sarcastic. Karkat just jabbed a finger in her face for interrupting.

"Now, if I go up there right now after she's been having a fight, she is going spear me on one of those rocks like a grub kebab." He demonstrated with one of his hands, 'impaling' it through the fingers with the other. "Now, the alternative is for me to sit down here, _basking_ in the idea that Terezi and Strider _hate_ each other! The spiteful, dead-ended Human way, even! So either I do one thing, and get screwed over, or I just stay here, and my life is _stu-pendous_! This is the best news I've had since you punks showed up and started chafing me day-for-day! You actually want me to go up and step in it?"

"...I'll go," Rose said, not wanting to listen to Karkat any further. "Someone should. I suppose I could... try to apologize for him? For all we know, Karkat's not the only one being a dick here." She shook her head, ignoring Karkat's dismissive spit from the couch. As Rose moved to leave, she reached out a hand to brush Kanaya's shoulder to get her attention away from Karkat. "See you," she said.

"See you," Kanaya whispered.

Rose did not much mind the elder gods as she passed them on her way through the transportalizer, and they did not much mind her in turn. Rose found Terezi's transportalizer unlocked, perhaps forgotten, and took it before its owner could change her mind. Beyond, Rose found the startings of a long mural Terezi and Dave had been drawing, which went off into the distance and equal parts impressed and detracted Rose. Rose went along for quite some time before she came to the unfinished end of the mural, where she found the source of the loud noise that had started the whole affair. Embedded knee deep in the floor, at the edge of a massive gash in the tiling, was Terezi's original cane. Rose was not entirely sure she wanted to go past that point, the literal line in the ground between her and Terezi. She could not imagine the sheer game-driven force that had gone into the swing. She was starting to regret coming up here with no information. What on earth _had_ Dave done?

Rose went on, to knock on doors and check down corridors, before finally going up the long stairs to the roof. There she found Terezi perched on the edge, legs dangling over the side. One hand lay limp in her lap, and the other was held clutched to her face, spread wide over shadow-cast eyes. When she heard Rose approach, Terezi lifted her hand and took a sniff of the air. Her face screwed tight with anger at first, but all she ultimately did to communicate with Rose was to look away. Rose stopped her approach. Above them, the sky struck black in all directions, save the false Prospit hanging high.

Terezi snapped back to attention well before Rose was ready for her. "What do you want?" she asked.

Rose did not reply. She was not entirely sure what she wanted herself. In a manner of speaking, she felt like she was simply there out of propriety, and it was now very clear that Terezi was not going to fish for comfort. Terezi took a moment to glare Rose down before continuing, but instead of piling on the passive-aggressive hypotheticals, like Rose would have expected, Terezi repeated her initial question, legitimately: "What do you want?" She was brusque that time, as though she felt that if she could ask quickly enough, Rose would be gone all the faster.

"...I want to talk," Rose said. It was automatic. Terezi _was_ upset, and wasn't this what Rose had always at least pretended to do when the time came?

"Talk about what? Sit me down on your couch? _T34R 1NTO MY H34D_" Terezi had turned enough so Rose could see her dagger teeth, perhaps not truly not as sharp as Terezi wanted to pretend, but more than sharp enough. "...I'm the one that does that here," Terezi said. She tapped her temple. "You don't know the first thing."

Rose started to step forward, but Terezi slammed a hand down onto the roof beside her. The stone buckled under her hand. "No!" she snapped. "You don't _get it_! You think I haven't seen you? You think I haven't seen you trying to ditch Eridan and Vriska like the... _plague_ they both are? You think we haven't all seen? You won't even talk to them straight when it really matters! You have to go around, and around, in circles, like you think it's a good thing, and you think I'm going to let you come here and play head games with me?"

"Is that what he did, then?" Rose said, trying to keep the conversation focused whether Terezi wanted it or not. It had been clear that Terezi was going to continue trying to change the subject, and Rose found her patience was at a premium. "You told him you like him, didn't you?" Terezi growled in reply. "Don't be ridiculous, we've all seen it coming for weeks. Everyone but the two of you. What? Did he not give you the decency of a 'straightforward response'?"

"Strider?" Terezi asked, sarcastically. "What if he didn't? Dave Strider's an ass." She swept her arm across the rooftop. "I'm sure everyone here is so surprised, too! Dave Strider? An _asshole_? You think..." she started, but paused to turn and take to her feet. "You think that I'm here because Dave, fucking, Strider doesn't know when to stop playing head games? Yeah, sorry Rose, I know him. Maybe not perfect, but well enough for that. Better than you know me, at least... or... or any of us!"

"I'll choose not to take that personally," Rose said.

"Oh, well _CONGR4TUL4T1ONS!_ You're going to do just... fine." And where Terezi had not let Rose come near her, she walked straight up to Rose. Terezi was short an inch on Rose, but that only allowed Rose to see over her glasses, where she saw eyes like two dried wounds on her face, tinted in a faint teal of tears already passed. "Not going to take it personally, Rosie? Not going to take it personally, when Vriska finally gets tired of you poking around in her life and goes volcanic?"

"I _intend_ to be out of the way," Rose said, testy. "You want to talk about Vriska and Eridan? I can do that. The way I see it, there's no reason for Vriska to go ballistic at present, and I don't intend to exasperate her."

"Vriska Serket doesn't need a _reason_!" Terezi snapped. Her voice was rasp. The young Trolls had always struck Rose as a little deep-throated, even the females, but Terezi's voice had gone into a rumble that would have done her well in a future in court. "Gog help you if you give her one! You haven't talked to her, you haven't hunted with her. You _do. Not. Know. Her._ and what you're doing is going to get you killed, and you will _deserve_ it!" Terezi threw up her hands, and suddenly began an impression of the Spidertroll. "Oh, 'We should be partners,'" she recited, "'That's so _aw8some!_ You're the best moirail ever, did you know that?' _FFF-_" Terezi paced a small circle to recover herself. "Murdering innocents on my watch, the second my back was turned. And if you rub her face in it, and is she sorry? Oh, very. Very sorry, Terezi. And then she pushes Tavros off a cliff on a blackcrush _impulse_, and just when I'm trying to pull everything together, Aradia... Aradia..." She shook her head, again and again. "Tell Kanaya she's an idiot! Picking up Vriska right after that? Is she insane? Just because she felt a little flushed one afternoon and didn't know how to say? Idiot! If you knew _anything_ about Vriska Serket, you would already have told her you were done. Carved it in stone! Bronzed it! Vriska ignores pity and she doesn't _deserve_ hate."

There was venom in that, venom Rose could not place but could taste in the air. Terezi rounded about and put distance between them both again. Rose did not know what to say, and did not make the mistake of trying to do so in spite. Terezi paced for a moment, but when it seemed that the topic had died, Terezi spoke up again.

"So what did he say?" she asked. "Once I left?"

"Which one?" Rose asked. "The one who just pissed you off, or the one who didn't come as soon as he knew what happened?"

To Roseﾒs surprise, Terezi almost laughed. "...Letﾒs try both."

Rose sat down. It was the only thing she could think of doing to look casual, and began to fidget with her hands to carry on the illusion. "Dave left," she started. "I think he went to his room. John and Jade went after him."

"Did he say anything?"

Rose shook her head. "Karkat was... less than kind. He made excuses to not to come up here."

Terezi looked away. "Fuck him," she said. "Fuck him and his candyassed... wriggling..." Terezi's attempt to parrot her former matesprit's insults fell to the side. "...Fuck him."

Terezi broke away and returned to the edge of the roof. Rose, who was still not sure if it was safe to approach, squatted on the rooftop far behind her. As she sat, Rose churned the situation in her head. Frankly, she wanted to leave just as Terezi had near-demanded, but something kept her. ...Empathy? It was not doing her much good, as Terezi soon began to ignore Rose entirely, and instead stared straight on. At first, Rose thought that she was lost in deep thought, with her face turned up toward the sky, but soon, she began to fidget with her hands, on and off. Only her face was not moving: it seemed as though she watched some invisible point in the sky, and kept lock on it. After a while, Rose realized that Terezi was talking to herself, but Rose could hear no sound. Terezi's lips moved only a little, but her hands picked up the motions: first her fingers, and from time to time, her whole arms. At last, whatever she was dictating came to its conclusion, and Terezi looked down at her lap.

But as she did, the second after her eye contact had broken with that invisible spot in the distance, Terezi let out a choking cry and an uncontrolled look of misery passed over her face. She hid her face from Rose at once, shocked and perhaps even frightened at her own emotions sprung from nowhere to overcome her the moment she had lost focus. Rose started to her knees, to move forward, but Terezi had recovered enough of her bearing to lash out with her palm and warn Rose away. Doing so seemed to cost her composure a second time, and so Rose obeyed only with hesitation. Terezi braced her head against her free hand, as if trying to gently suffocate further outbursts. She then took her outstretched arm back to her chest, and clutched it close, like a normal girl.

_Don't think like that,_ Rose scolded herself, but it was hard not to. Terezi's cheeks were flush teal with embarrassment, the teeth that bit at her own lip could tear flesh from bone without trouble, and in and idle moment, Terezi pushed a lock of hair over her nearest horn. But she was still a teenaged girl, wasn't she?

Terezi breathed deep and seemed to test her own lips before she risked saying what it seemed she had meant to say when she had first begun to turn. "...When I was... about two or so, I learned to read," she said, and waited for Rose to acknowledge that she was listening. When Rose nodded, she continued: "Or maybe I started to like reading, or read interesting things for the first time, or something. And one night I just _had_ to show my lusus, so I went to... to read to her, and..." Terezi sniffled. "And I think she liked to listen, so we started doing it all the time. And after a while, I think stopped doing it because I wanted to show her and it started to be just something we did? Especially if I wanted a distraction. I mean, we couldn't really talk in the normal way."

Rose, still wary about speaking up and shattering whatever had inspired Terezi to speak to her, leaned forward to communicate her interest, though she did not approach.

"Back then," Terezi said, "I used to have this really old book." Terezi looked down to her hands, which Rose realized were posed as if holding the tome. "Found it somewhere. Used to read it... all the time. It was a collection of old fairy tales, and fables... lectures, really. Last-generation propaganda, that sort of thing. My favourite, was... uh..."

Terezi turned, somewhat, partway towards her invisible point in the distance, her feet firmly on the ledge. She gathered her focus, and then began to recite.

"...Once upon a time..." she started, and as she spoke, her shaking tone was slowly replaced by practiced recitation. "Once upon a time, when the world bled with the deaths a thousand loyal Trolls in the face of shock rebellion, there was a soldier who lived in the northeast, where he lived a simple life and was content. And when he was called, no matter the night, or the weather, or the state of the world, he would stand for his empress and fight. And when he was allowed to rest, he would gather his closest companions to his table, where they made hobby and trade in the making of small wooden figurines.

"His moirail, a blacksmith, provided the tools, and tended to them as they sat and spoke together for all the time it took the project to complete. The soldier's kismesis, a soldier of like stock, would go into the forests, to find wood as per the terms of an arrangement that had been made between them, and would bring it to the soldier and his companions. The soldier's matesprit would work with drawings, planning the figurine, drawing out the shapes of Trolls, and beasts and scenes, to give each its perfect form. And the soldier would work the wood, and detail them, for he was ever skilled with a knife, and had no equal in battle or trade or show. He could cut with it, spin it, throw it in the air and catch it, hilt or blade without harm. He could throw it to a target, or he could sit with his companions and use it to carve out truth and fantasy, embellishment and detail, and he was content. And whenever he had finished, and brought that perfect form to life, he would give the figurine to two others. They were rivals, a couple he had guided in the way we call auspistice today. Together, the couple would paint it the figure in every colour of cloth and blood, or bark and soil, and they made the figures real. Together, they made figures and scenes, from near at hand and far away, from beyond the mountains and the oceans, or in the depths of the seas, which they had never seen but shaped with uncanny realism. They carved glories in the stars, and horrors in the pits, and heroes and villains alike. Together, the soldier and his companions could make the world breathe without ever leaving their workshop. And they were content, to sit and speak and work together.

"Now, as often happened in those days, when the world bled, there came throughout the land a call to arms and readiness. The time of great battles and great monsters was long over, but unity is a forever war, and the Empire fought its rebels. The soldier took up his weapon alongside his companions and went to the front and the lines as the Empire demanded of their talents. And they fought in petty battles, for what glory could be found, until each night was done. And the night came when the kismesis of the soldier fell in battle, and died, though the soldier stood by alongside, fighting with tooth and claw and glutted knife.

"When the war had ended, the soldier returned to his home, which his moirail had kept in his absence as he made weapons for the Empire. And the home was clean and tidy, and so the figures waited, in rows and rows, full of colour and intricate life. And the companions sat at their table. The soldier's moirail tended the tools, and went out into the forest, to gather the wood. The soldier's matesprit would work with drawings, planning them down into the shapes of beautiful trees and hideous plants, and soldiers in dress and rebels in rags. They would make the sights and sounds they had seen in the field, and recreated the places they had been, far beyond their homes. And the soldier took the wood, and worked it, and his pieces were beautiful, but lifeless. His trees were dead where they should have breathed in the wind; his soldiers stood stock and still, like any wooden toy. The land the companions made for their set looked dry, no matter what effort the feuding rivals made to paint it.

"And the rivals began to joke that the Troll figurines were corpses, doomed and lost in a hellscape. They said that they would paint the soldiers bled out, so the blood might show some sign of life, and feed the land. And so the soldier began to lose the respect of the rivals, and over time they went another way. And one so died.

"And the night came that the companions gathered again at the table, and set to work. And the moirail tended the tools, and gathered the wood. And soldier's matesprit pared her designs, down into the shapes of things they knew would rile the soldier, and spark the fire of craft in his heart. But the quality his work did not improve, and there was no paint to make them real.

"And as time went on, the soldier did not improve. Soon, his matesprit became ashamed him, and they fought," Terezi said. Given the circumstances, Rose watched for a reaction, but Terezi carried on without a moment's falter. "They fought until they had traded pity for scorn, and drifted their own ways.

"And the soldier ceased to make his beautiful things, for he had no way to give them life, and no inspiration to guide his hands. He became sullen and began to... well, falter." Terezi was proceeding so naturally that it had never occurred to Rose that she might be adding her own embellishments, or picking and choosing the perfect words. "One night, the inevitable: a message went out across the lands from the heart of the Empire, warning that the Drones had been dispatched. And one by one, from the lands closest to the hives and out, Trolls began to prepare with their kismeses and matesprits, to be ready for their terrible guests.

"And the soldier's moirail came to him, made him a promise that he would find new pity and new hate. But the soldier was not listening, for he had fallen ill in the mind, to fits of cowardice and immobility."

"He was depressed?" Rose asked. Terezi nodded. "I can't see that coming up often in children's stories, much less Troll. It seems..." Rose was about to say 'weak' but decided to go with: "...cullable."

Terezi smiled. "But if you don't know what they're coming from, how do you know that they went anywhere at all?" She continued: "Though the soldier was pitiful, and through his cowardice a subject of scorn, he had lost his charms, and was ill-kempt. His moirail brought him to a seeker's place, where Trolls in desperation could find some company. There, the moirail boasted of the soldier's skills with a blade, but even that had fallen aside for want of regular practice. The moirail kept up efforts for weeks and weeks, until one night, the soldier would not leave the sopor to face the sunset.

"And the moirail was upset. Angry. Sad. He had hoped to craft with the soldier again. 'I have to go,' he said. 'You've made a fool of yourself, and I will not be any part of it.' And he left, and met with his own kismesis, and went to live with his own matesprit for many sweeps, close at hand.

"Time passed, and the Drones came." Terezi swept out her left arm before her. But this gesture was different. It was not like the ones that had come before, complimenting the story. Terezi was not pointing the village she had brought into being with her story, but to the invisible point she had been watching before, as she had rehearsed her story in silence. She pointed out in the void in the real world, past safety, towards Jack.

"And the soldier rose that morning and found that it was too late to run, if he could have. For a time, he waited in cover - a coward," Terezi clarified for Rose, "blade in hand, though he knew he had lost his true skill. And when the Drones set to work at the other side of town, the man who had once been a soldier wandered his home, and came upon his figurines. His companions had left them all behind, the poor, unpainted samples alongside the marvellous, which cut him in his heart. But as he examined each one, and turned them over in his hand, he began to remember his companions, and what they had accomplished, and what they had meant to him. And he found his confidence, a ground on which to stand that had eluded him for so long. And he examined each piece, and could see where the poor figures had failed, and set each one in the place it would have stood if things had turned out better, and thought on his companions, as they had been in better times."

Terezi stopped her story for a moment, and looked at her empty hand, which she clutched as if holding a wooden figurine. Rose was not sure whether she was play-acting for effect or genuinely distracted. "And he left his knife as a tool," she said, "and went out to meet the Drones, head high, with a smile on his face."

And that was the ending, Rose realized, quite slow. "And I never understood," Terezi said, "when I was little, why someone like that that would fall aside so easily. Why he'd get so depressed because of their kismesis. I mean... how could he have let his life fall apart when he was so strong in the end? Biology? But... then why... I mean, who would let that happen! Screwing up the mating season is something you think only happens to everybody else. Who would be so stupid as to screw it up? It's not _hard_! But this guy... even though he did... I never thought bad of him. Because when it really mattered, he died like a _Troll_. That's the point! And now..." She looked up again, towards the doom unseen, and began to cry anew. "And now I don't know! I always thought I'd be fine, but I don't know how he did it alone."

"You mean... Jack?" Rose was not sure what sort of response Terezi was looking for. "That's not really the same thing, is it? I mean, I know what you're saying, Terezi but I think you might be stretching your metaphor."

"Not Jack. Just... scared. I'm scared, all right! So cull me!" She shook her head. "I'm scared and I've got nothing. I threw it all away, like your douchewit friend decided to point out before he left. Fine! Karkat doesn't want me? Fine. He wants to burn all his bridges and spit in my face on top of it? Fine! _Fuck. Him._" Terezi's hand crushed its invisible statuette in her fist. "And if your friend and I don't see eye to nose, I can live with that too. He didn't have to be a dick about it, but fine. But..." Realization flashed across Terezi's face for a moment, and frowned, and slowly the aggression trailed out of Terezi's voice, and she sighed.

"...Hadn't sunk in, had it?" Rose asked, when Terezi did not continue. "It's funny, isn't it? How some things just don't seem as final as you think in your head."

"Thought I had," Terezi said, wistfully. Terezi turned away again, back to the horizon. She looked again out toward Jack, this time without shifting. "I dunno, Lalonde. Who cares."

"You seem to."

"Don't be trite," Terezi cut.

Rose gave the approach a rest. "...Terezi?"

"Yeah?" Terezi replied, still terse but all the same, answering.

"What did Dave say?" Rose asked. "...I mean, he's fond of pointing out faults but you knew that before today. What did he do?"

Terezi shook her head. "You won't get it."

"Try me."

Terezi seemed more inclined to up and leave, but for some reason, answered all the same. "...he said that maybe we could still be friends."

Rose felt jolted in her confusion. "...I don't-"

"No. Neither did he. Or maybe he just didn't care. Can't tell with Dave." Terezi hugged at her legs.

Rose was hesitant. "Terezi... I know I shouldn't ask, but...?"

"It's insulting!" she insisted. "How am I supposed to explain it to you? I already tried to explain it to him, but did he listen? No, he just kept trying to throw it in my face!" Terezi's voice went from angry to shaking as she described it. "And then... he _leaves_."

"And that's when you chased him downstairs, I guess?" Rose asked, happy for the change in subject.

"No! Oooh no, _STR1D3RS 4PP4R3NTLY NOT TH4T SM4RT!_" Terezi wiped at her nose. "No. He time travelled in the middle of our conversation. He thinks he's stealthy, but he screwed up and I noticed. And... and I didn't know what was worse, I mean... that he didn't want to go back and take back his insult? Or that he had the power to do that and was willing to use it in _any way_. So I start yelling at him. 'What did you erase?'"

Rose squirmed. She knew Strider better than that, and realized that Terezi did as well, thus the sense of betrayal in thinking he had done otherwise. Rose knew that there was only one reason he'd have left the conversation in mid-sentence. She wondered just how to broach the subject, when Terezi showed that there was no need.

"...and after we've been screaming at one another for a while... Look, what do you know about Jack?"

Rose was one part relieved and one part hurt. "...he told you?" Rose asked. Dave hadn't told her a thing, she had just worked it out. Terezi seemed to assume that Rose had been told about Dave and Terezi's patrols as well.

"Yeah! I'm there screaming at him and Captain Hero tells me about Jack Noir. How he hasn't actually been leaving us alone? How he probably can find us if Dave and Aradia don't watch him _all the time_? And how we've all died like... four times each? Even with all we're doing?" Rose swallowed - she had not guessed that number. "And I'm nervous, and I have no idea how to deal with this. And before I realize it, I think 'I have to talk to Karkat,' because he knows all about this, but then I remember: Oh! Right." She sighed. "But I'm doing okay. For a while. But then Dave slaps me in the face with this friend crap, and when I ask him about it, he starts being this stoic jackass, and I can't tell if he's trying to be a stupid hero to keep me away from Jack, or if he really means... all of it." Rose said nothing. "I mean, I thought Dave liked me, but I'm not going to be shaken up if he doesn't. Push off, move on. But I figured Dave liked me well enough to just say so and not humiliate me like a black crush, that shit!"

"Maybe he was just stressed about Jack," Rose pointed out. She really had no idea how things went on a normal patrol for Dave, much less the one that had just preceded.

"I thought about that. But then I did a little more thinking, and I really don't think that was part of it," Terezi croaked. "Because then I realized that maybe he's not trying to humiliate me. I mean, you Humans really seem to mean the friend thing. And he keeps saying that I'm a great friend, and he likes just hanging out with me, I realize it... that's it. Maybe he's right. Maybe that's why Karkat's gone and dropped me like a hot rootbulb. Maybe that's why I don't see Nepeta anymore. Maybe Dave's just the first guy telling me the truth. People lie to me all the time, it's part of the job." Terezi was shaking again. "And then I realize that I have _nothing_ and maybe it's all my fault, and everything I _hadn't_ been thinking about Jack comes crashing in. And I let it all out on Dave, and he doesn't even have the nerve to say he's sorry." Terezi stood, seemingly to regain control over her emotion. "So yeah," she said, after she had grasped them. "I blew up. Do you get _that_?"

It would have sufficed to say that Rose did not, but she was no fool to say so out loud. Terezi was legitimately upset, and so Rose gathered up every word and every bit of information she could muster to try to understand why. When that failed, she stayed quiet, thinking. Rose felt as much torn between her own beliefs as she was with the desire to not sound like a Squiddle defending the core concept of friendship to a briny old sailor-man. It seemed like a cheap sentiment, not at all like Terezi's righteous anger over Rose's flitting touches with auspistice.

_...But why did Terezi care what I did with Vriska?_ Rose looked up at her companion, who was still gazing out again in the dark. Terezi, sensing the look, turned back part-way. With Rose sitting, Terezi towered over her. From there, Rose coudl see that Terezi's poise and control was so carefully trained that even this spat of tears had barely eroded it. The lawyer had never stopped operating just because she was upset, and her improvisational skills were still primed. Rose realized now that those instincts had watched the conversation go bye, and that Terezi had been able to take everything she had said without thinking, in malice and pain at the start of the conversation, and had use even those to make her point.

"I do get it," Rose said. Or at least, she understood as best as Terezi could teach her, which she reflected was very still little but considerable for the small span of time. "...when you were talking to me about not being straight with Vriska, it was because that was what Dave did with you. I get that." Terezi looked up, and nodded. "'Vriska doesn't deserve hate.' That's what you said." Nod again. "It's a death threat." No reply. "Because of the Drones. Someone who doesn't deserve hate... or pity, right Terezi? They're worthless, and deserves to be culled." Terezi, looking almost ashamed, turned away. Rose had to slump forward.

"You're pretty smart, for a Human," Terezi said, her voice low.

Rose rubbed at the bridge of her nose. She could not really agree. It was only because she had been talking to Kanaya for so long, and had learned all that she had about Troll culture that she could even fish this one explanation for Terezi's behaviour from the ocean of cultural impulses that probably struck her every action the way Rose's did to her own. She wasn't sure any other Human would have made the connection, though she hoped she was not alone in this. "You tried to tell Dave... what he was saying?"

"...I guess," Terezi admitted. "Just... there I was, right? He tells me about Jack, and I realize that everything I thought was safe about this place and my life is _junk_. And since we were just talking about Karkat, and Dave had just rejected me, I realize that everyone I care about is abandoning me. And the only person I've got left that I even trust is starts telling me that I'm not good enough to...

"But that's not what he meant," Rose said, without thinking. "Terezi, I know that friendship is this temporary, trial phase for you, but..."

"Oh, good, Rose is here to explain things! _US3 L1TTL3 WORDS SO MY STUP1D 4L13N BR41N C4N UND3RST4ND OK4Y?_"

"He wasn't trying to _consign_ you to it!"

"Of course I know what he _meant_, Rose! And I say it's _shit_! I mean..." Terezi dropped back to the floor, across from Rose, wanting to get to eye level but far too angry to do so casually. She rubbed at her temple. "I mean: I get it. He thinks of me the same way he thinks of you, and John, and Jade, but Rose: _that doesn't mean anything to me_. That upset you?" Terezi gave her a chance to answer, but Rose was not going to take that bait. "...Because it shouldn't. Think about it. I think if you had to choose between one of your friends and your mate, I think we know who you would pick, and everything else is smokescreen. You want to fight about this? Because I say I'm the one being honest. Your friends don't care about you the way you'd need when things are... are worst."

As Terezi finished her threat, and got no reply, she almost seemed to deflate a little. She seemed very tired, and empty, like the last threat had been all she had left in her, and with Dave too far gone to hit with it, she had thrown it at Rose. What she said next was almost the same sentiment, but it was as though Terezi now felt the need to say it without bile as fuel.

"I mean... what if..." she said, and then cleared her throat, swallowed. "What if Kanaya decided she wanted to be kismeses tomorrow. What would you do? Would you have it in you to start treating her with pins and needles? ...I dunno. It's not even a very good comparison."

"I follow," Rose said. Since Terezi had calmed, Rose felt the opportunity to open up herself. "What I mean is that I get it to a point, I think. I get that you were upset, and that that was too much for you. I think that if I were in your shoes, I'd have blown up for for lesser reasons, even, before friendship even came into play."

"But you don't get how I feel," Terezi said.

Rose wanted to tell Terezi that she understood, but it was becoming rapidly clear that she did not. Once again, her mind strayed back through her conversations with Kanaya. "...Terezi, I don't know what to say about most of this," Rose admitted at last. "I don't even know what to offer." Terezi looked over, questioningly. Rose sighed. "If you don't feel you can do it, when you're calm, I could tell Dave that you two should be apart. If that helps."

Terezi curled up her legs tight to her chest, and set her glasses aside so that she could rest her head against her knees. "I think he gets that much," she said. Rose could not help but agree with that.

And then, with everything else calm, finally the Squiddles won out. It took Rose a moment to build up her courage, to express something she had previously found cliche, even vapid, but now did not truly want to leave unsaid. When Rose found her voice, it even started out in a squeak, and she had to clear her throat. "...Terezi, I know you're not going to believe this, but I have to say it. I think - adamantly, even though it's not a solution to your problems - that Dave really... does care about you. As much as Strider does anyone. And that that's what he was trying to say, and that I hope you'll talk this out together."

Terezi hid her eyes for a moment, behind her own legs, but her proper response was firm enough. "Rose, when we want someone to be in our lives?" she said, referring to the Trolls, "we ask them to stay. And I did." And Rose nodded.

They sat there together one last time, like before, but facing and proximate, both of them thinking about what the other had said. This time, Rose actually did feel like she was doing some good.

"...Rose?" Terezi asked after a time.

"Yes?"

"Do you think you ever... stop liking someone? I mean, do you think you ever look at them and say 'I guess his eyes aren't really that cute' or, 'You know, he doesn't make me laugh anymore.'"

Rose was not honestly sure what to say. "Maybe. Maybe if they change?"

"If they change..." Terezi said, like a sigh. "Don't you wish... don't you wish you could just go up the next night and say 'I'm sorry! It was all a mistake! I was pale for you all along!' Or... 'We can be friends. We can be best friends, the best f-fr...'" Terezi reached up and wiped a tear from her cheek, in the process replacing her glasses. "...Hmph."

"Are you going?" Rose asked, when it looked like Terezi was about to leave. "I have a..." Terezi stopped. "...Look. This is only sort of related, but you're the first person I can really ask." Rose was not sure where the question was coming from, but with Terezi leaving, Rose suddenly felt cold, as if she were being left alone with that invisible spot in the distance. "Do you think Dave and Aradia can hold Jack off?" Rose asked. She worried about her phrasing, that it might stray too close to implying that Terezi knew Dave better at a time when that might be hurtful, but Terezi did not seem to mind. Indeed, she chuckled.

"He's Dave fucking Strider," she said. "And Aradia... well, she might have not been very smart about how she hit Vriska, but at least she knows when somebody needs to be hit." Terezi was grinning, but ruefully, and when Rose looked up at her she looked up at a mouth full of shark-teeth, wide and terrifying, and up at sad eyes, still not hiding the truth for all the rest of her marvellous fa?de.

Rose looked away. "Are you sure you don`t want me to talk to him?"

Terezi's smile faded back behind her lips. She then reached into her sylladex and pulled out a piece of paper, which she looked at, sighed, and crumpled it into a ball. Then, she looked down at Rose, hefted the ball and bounced it gently off of Rose's face.

"Bonk," she said on impact, and turned to leave the roof behind.

Rose reached over and took up the wad of paper and unfolded it carefully, discovering a print out from a laser printer, with a pen signature indecipherable in the corner. She leaned in to read the contents. She wanted to laugh but really, the whole thing just caught in her throat.

"...okay, TURN the spoon first you shit..."

Rose returned to the Lab the way she had come, and made her way back to the central computer lab. She ignored everyone that talked to her, pressing on without a word. Rose had never really imagined what it would be like to break up with someone, but she was imagining now. She could only imagine Terezi's hurt if she saw Dave in the next few days, and could not imagine what nonsense Dave was likely to go through to bury the same emotions. There was not much left to bridge that gap now.

Terezi had wanted some support when things were at their worst. But for her, there was no one to do that if they did not fill a quadrant, and now Dave was out, and Karkat was on the exact rocks he had predicted. Worst of all, it seemed that Terezi was right. If Jack were to come tomorrow, Terezi would have no one. Rose knew that Dave would have her, John and Jade, and for all Rose knew, Aradia on some level. Where the Trolls needed their connections hard-forged, the Humans were happy loose, in a manner of speaking. Personally, Rose did not feel like her connections were that loose at all, but had not been willing to say so to Terezi. Rose wished she could change that without spitting on the Troll's culture, or her own. No one would win for that. But she could not think of a thing she could do. At least, there was nothing she could do for Terezi.

Maybe she had too much of Kanaya in her after all, but as the idea planted in her, and grew, Rose could not find it in her to sit still. Not while there was work she could do. Not if she could still, just maybe, try to forge one connection between the sixteen of them, to bring some joy. She was not going to stand aside if she could help someone else hold hand in hand together at the end of their world.

And so Rose went to talk to Tavros.

* * *

><p><strong>END OF ACT 1<strong>

* * *

><p><em>I'm afraid there is an image of the symbol Ghost Rose draws in the dust in the AO3 version, but I can't possibly show in any fashion because of the limitations here at FFn. Sorry, folks.<em>

_Technically, the timetables/music boxes keep the Time players from "blind jumping." If they focused a little, or perhaps went God Tier if that were an option in this 'verse, they wouldn't need them. Since Dave can't guarantee he can time travel and not end up inside the slowly-spinning meteor (a good call, since the warped meteor was swallowing him even if he didn't realize it), the only thing Dave could have reliably done ws freeze himself. Aradia's powers are a little different, but thinking about it, the result's probably the same in this case._

_"Vriska doesn't deserve hate," has always been meant as a death threat. I was going to leave it just as unexplained in this draft as it was in the original, but decided that if I was going to explore this chapter's topics in depth, even if it meant being blunt. I really, really, really hate spelling out the Weird Alien Shit, because I feel these things have a greater impact when you work them out on your own, but I also wanted to avoid the confusion that accompanied the original draft's early chapters, no matter how much that confusion may have come from the sloppier writing of the original chapters. One of the things I decided to do with this draft was to guide the reader explicitly until EOA3 (where we left off - or rather, somewhere in the middle of the chapter after we left off) to avoid the pitfalls of the original draft. Beyond that, we'll enter the weird and wild world of personal interpretation._

_First drafters may remember a time when there were no act breaks in this fic, but I added them later on. Suffice to say, the latter half of the fic is built around act breaks and the former is not, but I figured I had to put them somewhere. I think this is still the best thematic break we're going to get for a while now, no matter how little I think four chapters (no matter how long) constitute an "Act."_

_One day I'm going to have to come back here and list the pages and pages of crap I had to mention or mostly couldn't mention, all for the most twisted of reasons. I stand by all of them, but that doesn't mean they didn't make editing this an absurd exercise in notation and alternate drafts._

_**Notes for First Drafters:** I'm going to include a few notes from time to time that will include spoilers for people who haven't read the first draft. To keep from accidentally spoiling anyone, they will be put on my Tumblr (skaianr) behind a Read More cut, but I can't directly link them from this version because FFn is a pain like that. Today's topic is Ghost Rose and moreover, that symbol of hers._


	5. Act 1 Recap

_For those interested in learning about the delay, I can't do much more than to direct you to the Tumblr (skaianr) and the forum thread. I've come up with a way to post about progress on the thing that causes the delays, but you're not going to know about it if you don't got to one of those two! In the meantime, there should be two full chapters soon: one near the end of this week and another next week._

_Looks like you get to see the recaps this time, FFn, since they're not script-format Homestar Runner crossovers jokes this time. Enjoy!_

* * *

><p>MEANWHILE, in another timeline...<p>

Trapped. Psychologically: like a deer in the headlights. Physically: sealed in a large metal box, the lights dim and the air stale and metal shock-cold under every footstep. And there was nothing to drink. Like, not even some goddamn seltzer. Roxy wouldnﾒt have reduced herself to drinking seltzer straight but it was the principal of the thing.

Having been forced into this situation, Roxy watched the others, as she had to admit it was easier than having to watch herself. Gossip and eavesdropping were fulfilling, and a solid distraction from the snake-whisper coming out from the titanium-wrapped, double encrypted modus-bottle she had made of her last sample of merlot (the diamond-encased, quad-encryped copy of _Nintendo World Championship 1990_ had already been opened and played over and again. She had held out as long as she could, but she was tough - she wasn't a _god_). Roxy felt pretty sure that she could alchemize more alcohol if she could just get the merlot to the alchemiter, but Janey had put her foot down, saying something about keeping polite in polite company. Not that Roxy could call them that. She was not entirely sure what the deal was with the Trolls, or how they were taking to their mutual imprisonment. To try to get some good info, she would grab them from time to time and sit them in front of _Rad Racer_ for as long as she could keep them. Roxy had felt it was okay to waste time like that at first, thinking them safe in the lab to muck and meddle. She had not been alone, and so that that was where they stayed, until Roxy had finally sobered and time had become a matter of ticks on the wall. Roxy had counted twenty-two, before Dirk pointed out that she had lost a week somewhere in the middle (she had found the station's ecto computer. Things had happened. Purring things). Curly-Horns was never really around to ask for certain.

Curly-Horns was always away, and frankly, so was Janey, which was a bit disappointing after a life spent apart. Jane said she was just going to take a look at the lay of the land, but if she thought she was going to get away with a lie that flimsy, she had grossly underestimated the precognitive wonder twin powers of bffsies 4 lyf. Roxy knew that Jane and Curly-Horns were sneaking out day for day, keeping ole Zodiac Jack and his thirteen prototypes from finding them and reaching the obvious end game. And Roxy knew what _that_ meant. It meant that Curly-Horns ran control while Jane played... bait.

Roxy supposed she understood, to a point. There wasn't exactly some other Time player to play with Curly-Horns or something, and the rest of them weren't exactly lining up to feed Meenah to let her be the new Life bait. Roxy didn't like to think of it, though. Jane was still her bff. To make matters worse, the stress was starting to wear on Jane. She was still good old stolid and serious JaCro if she caught you doing something stupid, like try to introduce Trolls to _My Little Pony, now with additional expert commentary_, or to alchemize just one martini, _mom_, but she wasn't playful any more. The day before, Jake had tried to tickle her in her cute little gut (which was some GRADE A CHEESE CLASS FLIRTIN right there, English, Roxy had thought) when Jane had near panicked in response. Roxy wasn't even sure if it was a physical wound Jane was hiding. If it was a physical injury, it would have to be a bad one for the game's wide selection of potions to leave it untouched. If things were that bad, Roxy wished Jane would just tell Miss Gabbymouth (that would be Aranea) about her srs tummy scars and get them patched up. But it was something else, Roxy wished Jane would come to Miss Zuipperpips (that would be her) for some good old fashioned huggings and chattings and stereotypical girlchats and girlcries and w/e really just don't bottle it up like an idiot. She figured Jane probably needed that anyways. What with fighting crazy Orochi-hydra bastards and dying all the time and scaring your bffsy so bad she trained one of her new kitties to go live in your room for fuzzy cuddles to cheer you up huh, how about that?

But Roxy didn't like to think about that much.

"Engfish, if Honey doesn't Blow Up any Kids in the next five minutes, we're watching _A Time to Krill_ even if I have to spear the DVD player."

As for the realfriend activities Roxy did get to do, she didn't mind movies, which had become a sort of gathering point for their crop of sixteen. If someone asked, Roxy would have had to admit that it was annoying how Jake had sort of taken over the gaming TV she had set in the corner of the main lab, but it was okay, really. Still, she felt she could do better. Her friends were no help in that. Jake was usually at the TV, entertaining his myriad Troll guests, and when he wasn't doing that, he was helping Aranea study some of the game lore found in the expansive lab-dungeon (wink, wonk, etc, etc; at least as far as teasing Mr. English was concerned). Even Dirk was finding Trolls to occupy his time when he wasn't trying to building his secret project in the upper levels, but his Troll hangouts were _totes boring_ as far as Roxy was concerned. Roxy had even considered dating - "Going Outside", they called it, in a thinly veiled parlance that left nothing to the imagination and was totally Roxy's choice of words. Some of the Trolls were into the idea of Going Outside too, if only as opposed to Staying Inside And Going Crazy, but while they were cool, that didn't mean Roxy was really into any of them. Besides, she sort of figured she understood their relationships about as well as they understood hers, and wasn't quite ready to trip over that threshold if it meant a faceplant onto the muddy rug beyond.

Of course, then there was the part where her prospective dating partners were all mutating or some shit. It all started with Meenah and Aranea, and sort of spread off to both their good buddy and Roxy's, the Bangeranger (still funny). He wasn't exactly having a happy time of it, but that was nothing but compared the ladies. Roxy wasn't really sure she _wouldn't_ swap biologies, given the chance, because Trolls had some pretty sweet stuff going on with them, but if it meant going through the moult, Roxy wouldn't be first in line. Whatever their bodies were doing to them, the three of them started getting pissy and itchy and worse. It didn't take an expert to know that that meant Meenah was going to get stabby fast. Tridents, salad forks, splayed pencils if she had to. And Aranea was never paying attention to her any more (Jake had confided that she was reading everyone else's mind to make sure no one was looking when she needed to scratch), so no one was safe from the Tyrian Stabber. And that was sort of how things got started.

After a full day of tiring attempts at hangouts, not-dating woes and the insinuation that she'd look better with a pair of salad tongs in her eye, Roxy decided to get absolutely shitfaced blotto. On top of the usual, even.

Sneaking out in the night, stealthier than a rogue in a void, she managed to make it to the alchemiter without bumping into Janey or anything. All she had to do yet was be subtle with her prizes.

"Well maybe that's because you're a hali-iv-a-butt!"

Three hours later, Roxy realized she had forgotten a step.

"Now come on, you two," Aranea said. She stepped in between Roxy and Meenah about as cautiously as possible. It was something like ten minutes to dawn and everyone was already up. Roxy supposed she had served as everyone's surprise alarm that morning, what with the singing and the sauce pans accidentally falling out of the cupboard and the bread fights. Somewhere in the middle of it - she couldn't remember how - she had bumped straight into Spidertroll and her guybuddy the Fantabulous Mohawk having a bit of a disagreement with Meenah about hell if Roxy knew. Things had degenerated from there. Somehow. Or other. Through no fault of one's own.

"Now let's just... stand apart," Aranea pushed them gently, "and talk about what's going on. Meenah, I think _you'd_ like to tell Roxy just how much it upset you when she walked into you, spilled her drink on you and called you a 'stab-happy psycho-bitch with too much siss in your gwills.'"

"Sass in your gills," Roxy growled, and hiccupped. As she looked around, Roxy found that she now had the attention of most of the crowd. Jake was looking up from his movie, Dirk from over the top of his shades, and every one of the Trolls stared at them together. Roxy was not really sure how to feel about that. At least Jane hadn't found her yet.

"Just being accurate," Aranea said. "And Meenah, while you're talking, please keep in mind that where Roxy comes from, that might have not been meant as an insult! For example, _it's entirely possi8le that given her up8ringing with Exiles, she might consider 'sass' to 8e a desira8le show of emotion in and otherwise unemotional society, and furthermore..._"

"Oh god." Roxy clamped her hands to her ears as her stomach churned. It wasn't really surprising that Aranea was breaking out her _tone_. The Trolls tended to use it when they were in some of their characteristic moods, which meant Aranea's went on and _on_. Worse, ever since she had started her crazy-ass Troll puberty, it was doing something funky with her voice like Roxy still couldn't really believe. It was like there were two Araneas, one in front of her and one behind, and neither had anything interesting to say!

Meenah pushed Aranea aside, and immediately decided to share a piece of her mind with Roxy. Roxy didn't really pick up on most of the particulars, since Meenah's tone shot out the moment she started threatening and there really was something unpleasant about it that went beyond the echo thing, and it wreaked havoc with Roxy's gut. What Roxy did pick up of her diatribe had nothing to do with culture or the sharing of feelings, but did include at least three bodily threats, some psychological undermining, eleven fish puns, two clam puns and at least one reference to the preservative chemicals used in the canning of sardines. This girl was good. But could she top drunken mis-speakings? The greatest test. Roxy was determined to find out.

"Youu think you're so awesome, you, with your puns, and your golden stick, and your sexy piercings!" Wait, part of that came out wrong. "But I've got plenty of sexy stuff! _I'll take you on any way you want, fishhyyy._" Wait, the same part of this is continuing to come out wrong, with increasing and alarming regularity

They were eventually pulled apart by a combination of Spidertroll and Bull-Boy, whom Roxy accidentally complimented in between snips about their taste in attractive clothing. It just kept happening. Trying not to look too embarrassed, Roxy glared straight at Meenah, who glared straight back. _Don't look in her eyes,_ the Trolls had advised. _Don't stare down the devil when she's still got her fork._

"...you like my lures?" Meenah asked, instead.

"Your what?" Pause. It took Roxy a moment to think of fish hooks. "The piercings? Well... yeah!" Roxy decided.

Suddenly, they were talking about piercings. Roxy had never talked about piercings in her life, or tattoos either, which came up in time. Sure, there was a lot of words she didn't understand, and Meenah kept threatening to perform various procedures herself, but Aranea and Handlebar Horns kept around and things went along okay. Roxy thought she heard Spidertroll say something about "If they're not at each other, I'm in favour of it," and soon the two of them were hanging out pretty comfortably too.

Roxy did not know it, but now people were trickling off, and soon the four of them would have total privacy. Not fast enough, however, to avoid Jane, who arrived tired and pained, and soon adopted a look of resigned neutrality at the situation. Roxy ignored her, but maybe Janey was justified in her stick-in-the-mud poo-pooing, considering how things ended up playing out once they all wandered out of the room to do their own thing. And by their own thing, Roxy meant more drinking.

Roxy did not stop to wonder why her three new drinking buddies were up so early, though if she had, she might have thought twice about doing what she ended up doing anyways. She should have given more thought to what had brought them to an argument before she had arrived, or should have imagined what might be going through their heads as she led them through one round too many of 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall, but she did not. In hindsight, more than anything else she wished she had kept a better memory of her and that other Troll's eighteenth pesterchum conversation. It had been a critical quid pro quo conversation, a back and forth exchange of cultural data in hopes of stripping any future conversations of misunderstandings, like the one Roxy was about to make (even if the idea was Meenah's in the first place). Her pesterlog partner had told her that Trolls had four different quadrants, each for different kinds of relationships. That part she had followed. They had also mentioned that one of the quadrants was still pretty much like the one Human romantic relationship. That part she went over Roxy's head somehow. There had been a lot of text. Anyone could have missed it! The point being, she and her new friends had made several, honest, repeat, mutual misunderstandings, probably.

It would be a day and a half before anyone told her that kissing each of her new friends hard on the lips was the flushed equivalent of kissing each of her new friends hard on the lips.

* * *

><p>MEANWHILE, in yet another timeline...<p>

A Situation Recorder, Dersite, delves into the depths of a fortress lost in space and time. And with this familiar stranger: a new companion close at hand. As the Dersite speaks, she hangs on every gesture. She responds only in turn, if with a certain outright contempt for labial sounds. Wherever they go, she can always be found marionnext to the Exile.

(The Dersite is talking to a puppet.)

**Open Monolog:**

**AC:** :33 where are we going?  
><strong>SR:<strong> Down'll do it. It's at the bottom of this bottomless pit, surrounded by the corpses of an infinite number of dead mascot protagonists from 90s.  
><strong>AC:<strong> :33 but why here? why is it in a dead timeline and not a living one?  
><strong>SR:<strong> Long story short, it is. It's in all of them.  
><strong>SR:<strong> I just sort of figured...  
><strong>SR:<strong> ...well...  
><strong>SR:<strong> I mean, Hussie was just shot up.  
><strong>SR:<strong> The lesson learned here is "hide from your villains."  
><strong>SR:<strong> And where better than the last place they shot up?  
><strong>SR:<strong> Shot, Scratched, whatever.  
><strong>AC:<strong> :33 *ac is still confused by the meta developments*  
><strong>SR:<strong> Welcome to Homestuck.  
><strong>AC:<strong> :33 but why did they break the first timeline at all?  
><strong>AC:<strong> :33 i mean, why take one over the other? why scratch the first one at all?  
><strong>SR:<strong> I'll be honest, it'd be easier to answer that if they were right here. They're a gabby lot.  
><strong>SR:<strong> Maybe it'd be easier if you understood what was going on over there. In the new timeline.  
><strong>AC:<strong> :33 you know best! you are the author.  
><strong>SR:<strong> And you're an organizational tool brought into being by the need for a foil in these fourth wall segments.  
><strong>SR:<strong> Well, that or possibly the physical trauma of banging my head into stuff over and over again in this unlit place.  
><strong>SR:<strong> One or the other.  
><strong>SR:<strong> Either way, shoot for less existentialism, okay? We look silly enough as it is.  
><strong>AC:<strong> :33 *ac looks silly because she's been painted by a hack artist who couldn't even draw panels for the recap*  
><strong>SR:<strong> Don't rub it in.  
><strong>AC:<strong> :33 *ac's horrible appearance is a constant drain on her self esteem*  
><strong>SR:<strong>I'll fix it later!

As they spoke, the Dersite walked on, into the deeper dark.

"After this timeline was SCRATCHED at the end of the first draft of the fic, things were reset to the beginning of a new... let's call it them 'Universe H'. Changes were made. Time passes, and before you know it, the HUMANS have reached the point of the canon storyline where ROSE went GRIMDARK and very little other changes up to that point - this in spite of the massive change that they live in a session with no GOD TIERS. Why this is (beyond that it's a factor of the pre-God Tiers original draft), is not clear, nor is how they managed to get to the same point in spite of this hindrance. Due to the lack of GOD TIERS, Aradia is still in her SOULBOT.

"Beyond the lack of God Tiers, the only change we know of before the duel with Jack was an additional PESTERLOG conversation between Rose and KANAYA MARYAM, which is being revealed piecemeal and discusses cultural differences between the Trolls and Humans. The only section of this conversation that has been shown so far confirms that the Trolls in this reality do not form longterm FRIENDSHIPS, as per Karkat's canon boast, though they do occasionally form TRIAL RELATIONSHIPS designed to find one's ideal quadrant. In a roundabout fashion, Kanaya invited Rose to such a trial relationship, in which they remain at present.

"No matter the sequence of events preceded the duel, it came to play all the same. Then things began to change with verve. It seems that at some point after going grimdark, Rose may have OPENED THE SESSION at its border to permit access for those of the NOBLE CIRCLE OF HORRORTERRORS. Why they showed any particular interest in entering is not exactly clear, but what is clear is that this spell of Rose's directly or indirectly caused the session to physically SPLIT at its edge and seeded strange plants throughout the session. Dave also made a vague reference to a 'grimdark BLACKSMITH.' As these events were going on, the duel continued, with additional changes: DAVE attributes his prime-self's death to this series of events and not a duel with Jack on LOSAF, while Rose appears to have escaped her own canon death with the help of JADE. Afterwards, the humans, along with Jack, seem to have ended up in the Troll session, where the Trolls had somehow survived without a series of catastrophic MURDERS, and also without Kanaya having attempted to hatch a new MOTHER GRUB.

"Upon arrival, Jack presumably proceeded to destroy the Troll's session much akin to the original canon. We've learned that, through this or other means, the entire casts' DREAMSELVES have either died or become integrated as their new prime bodies (Vriska, Sollux and Dave at least). These characters that are now Dreamselves still show occasional signs of having Dream powers, along with class and element powers inherited from the game.

"Hiding from Jack, the sixteen barricaded themselves in the Troll's ECTO LABORATORY in hiding from the demon rampaging about. To give the other fourteen a chance to work on a counterattack, the two HEROES OF TIME proceeded to combat Jack through time, knowing that, should he ever see the lab and survive, they will no longer be able to prevent his final assault. To aid them, KARKAT VANTAS has ordered the others to run periodic scans of the session via their COMPUTERS and so provide the pair with data. Karkat has also aided them in hiding the truth of their mission from the others, who would probably use the information as an excuse to do something INCREDIBLY STUPID and ILL-ADVISED. Like try to help them. In spite, he seems to have told JOHN, and Rose has worked out on her own. Worryingly, Jack has gained advantages of his own, gaining additional strengths from his three prototypings he had largely ignored after gaining BEC'S. This process seems to have given him TIME powers of his own.

"Thanks to Rose's experience and details only alluded at, the united players now see the Horrorterrors as a threat. The group realized that this was a threat that would have to be dealt with before sleeping, as their dreamselves remain in the control of the Terrors should they sleep. To this end, the cast prepared a FALSE PROSPIT and FALSE DERSE with their powers, which prevent contact with their dreamselves when sleeping, giving them dreamless nights. Unknown to them, the transportalizers in the lab connect them to a section of PARADOX SPACE occupied by MIDDLING GODS that serve under the HORRORTERRORS. Rose has realized this, but has informed no one as she believes them to be of no consequence. No one else seems to have noticed, which I feel the need to spell out since Roxy started window-jumping in canon and made this little detail all but canon itself. During her first visit to this in-between space in the fic, Rose noticed a strange Troll present along with her and the Gods, but it was too late for either to react.

"Around a month after entering the session, Rose walked in on VRISKA having a screaming fight with TAVROS and ERIDAN, and, not knowing what was going on, Rose stopped them. We later learned that VRISKA had been upset to learn that TAVROS and ERIDAN had been casually dating without telling her, but this event was perhaps more important because it caused VRISKA and ERIDAN to believe they had been AUSPISTICED by Rose, however unintentionally, and had mixed feelings. Several days later, Eridan confronted Rose on the point, hoping to earn her and Vriska's mediated, ashen affections. Rose rejected him.

"Meeting with Kanaya in the lab, Rose learned she had been busy planning a SPAWNING CAVERN for when the time came for her to hatch the MOTHER GRUB. She also revealed a DRESS she had planned for Rose, and we learned that the two have not gravitated toward any sort of RELATIONSHIP in particular since their initial conversation.

"Speaking to Tavros, Rose learned about his troubles confirming his relationship with his possibly-boyfriend, and initially offered to help him before she learned he was speaking about Eridan, whom she had just snubbed moments before. She felt it was best if she turned Tavros down as well, though she left him with some fleeting, generic advice. In the course of their conversation, however, Rose learned that the Trolls' DENIZENS seemed to have had ZODIAC-themed names and appearances, and were not matched with Denizens in the Human's session.

"Soon after, Rose learned that Jade and NEPETA had been attacked by UNDERLINGS near EQUIUS' section of the lab. These attacks had become frequent of late, and this particular attack featured a MIDBOSS that demonstrated game powers drawn that were from its Troll session prototypings. Due to its power compared to the lesser underlings, these powers were mutated far beyond their original sources, in a fashion partially resonating with JACK'S new power abuse. To make matters worse, we learn that the Humans were forced to leave their session with sub-par experience levels, making them nearly incapable of defeating the local Imps (this includes John, who was at MAX LEVEL in canon well before Rose's duel with Jack. Why this has changed is also not clear). Worse, Rose's grimdark period has left her with an even larger deficit and untrained Seer of Light skills on top. In spite but largely thanks to the Trolls, the gang was able to defeat the midboss, though this battle exposed unusual cracks in their relationships: particularly Equius and Aradia's relationship (which was hinted to be VACILLATING) and also in Karkat and TEREZI'S MATESPRITSHIP.

"To help raise their pathetic game levels, the Humans agreed to join regular patrols alongside their usual data-gathering operations, and to all come to any midboss-triggered alarm.

"While on patrol, Dave and Aradia attempted to correct a disaster wherein a wild attack of Jack's had inadvertently destroyed half the lab and killed multiple cast members in a beta timeline. This event had the unfortunate side effect of causing the local beta Rose to return to her grimdark state and call on the Horrorterrors again to defeat Jack, but in spite of this (but consistent with canon), this beta, grimdark Rose was killed. When they went to leave, Dave and Aradia were distracted by the sudden arrival of a strange Rose doppelganger, with grimdark appearance and white-flush ghost eyes, who identified herself via THE CENTRAL BRANCH of a three-pronged SYMBOL.

"Judging from limited evidence, this ghost appeared to be working with, for, or was herself somehow related to the NOBLE CIRCLE. She attacked Dave when he and Aradia attempted to leave, and referring to herself as one of a group with mixed motives. Aradia rescued Dave from the attack, but not before his MIND had been shattered by the sight of something in the crack of the beta game session, in the typical way of Lovecraft's monstrosities. She took him to Terezi a week in the FUTURE to be healed, causing him to learn that he had ALREADY TOLD HER about his patrols sometime between then and there.

"When Dave returned to the present, it was to an awkward conversation (already in progress) in which Terezi was attempting to get him to masquerade as her new matesprit as part of a break-up prank on Karkat (this hinted at the start of Chapter 4 for anyone who missed the details). Unfortunately, when Dave realized she had genuine intent behind her prank, and was actually interested in him, he made the critical mistake of addressing her as being only a FRIEND. He left the conversation fix the timeline at around this point, and was spotted doing so by Terezi, who mistook this as a misuse of his Time powers to manipulate the conversation. Eager to fix the misunderstanding and eased by his vision of the future, Dave told Terezi about his patrols and the threat of Jack. This, unfortunately, compounded the existing problem: already hurt by the ongoing collapse of her matespritship, the collapse of her plan with Dave, the collapse of her relationship with Dave (friendship being an impossible relationship for her) and now startled and frightened by the threat of Jack, Terezi became quickly upset and the conversation became a fight that reached the main lab.

When both participants fled to their rooms, Rose went to speak with Terezi, who tried to explain her emotions via a Troll fable. This conversation helped Rose begin to understand the nature of the QUADRANTS to Troll psychology, especially in the form of personal support: Rose later comparing Troll relationships as 'hard-forged' to the Human's comparably 'loose.' Terezi compared her fear of Jack's arrival as her relationships collapsed to one awaiting the Drones without a matesprit and kismesis. She explained how this and Dave's 'friend' comment seeded and grew a feeling of worthlessness in her, all compounded by her very bad day. By the end of the conversation, Rose may have won Terezi's respect to some degree, but Dave had lost it. However, now with a better understanding of the Troll's psychology, Rose decided she would indeed help Tavros with his relationship problems well before Jack would arrive, wanting to give him someone to 'hold hand in hands with at the end of their world' if that was how things came to their end.

**Open Monolog**

**AC:** :(( I guess they still have a way to go, huh?  
><strong>SR:<strong> We'll catch up. Sometimes it's slow going.  
><strong>AC:<strong> :33 *ac would just like things to catch up to things here in h1 is all*  
><strong>SR:<strong> I know.  
><strong>SR:<strong> Except not quite.  
><strong>AC:<strong> :33 i know. It'll be diffurent  
><strong>SR:<strong> Yes.  
><strong>SR:<strong> And no.  
><strong>AC:<strong> :33 huh?  
><strong>SR:<strong> It's just...  
><strong>SR:<strong> What gave you the impression that this was H-_One_?

* * *

><p>[I wanted to end the chapter with another vignette from the Roxyverse reflecting the end of act 1 conversation with Terezi, but we'll need to get to know the A1 Trolls a bit better for me to find a surrogate Terezi. I won't let it hold me back for now, and once the vignette is done, I'll be sure to inform you all via Tumblr, forums and an author's note in whatever chapter I finish after it.<p>

So while this is incomplete, let's fill space with something temporary. While I was writing this recap, I actually made several edits of note. I already discussed them with the Tumblr and Thread crowds, but here it is for everyone else:

The Thief symbol described in Ch 2 should have said "palm with a coin", not "palm with two coins". I've drew the wretched thing on my first (paper) draft, you'd think I'd have the tact to get my own details right.

Aradia was missing from Sgrub's autolevel calculations ("MaTi 99"). Because I preferred not to change the title of the chapter, I sucked a level out of Dave, John and Jade each so that the average became 91.444 and the title could stay "Autolevel 91".

Added an author's note about powers to Ch4. "Technically, the timetables/music boxes keep the Time players from 'blind jumping.' If they focused a little, or perhaps went God Tier if that were an option in this 'verse, they wouldn't need them. Since Dave can't guarantee he can time travel and not end up inside the slowly-spinning meteor (a good call, since the warped meteor was swallowing him even if he didn't realize it), the only thing Dave could have reliably done was freeze himself. Aradia's powers are a little different, but thinking about it, the result's probably the same in this case."

A minor revision to the fable, in the whole Chapter 4-wide intent of being blunt instead of alluding. The line "And so the soldier began to lose the respect of the rivals, and over time they went another way." now reads: "And so the soldier began to lose the respect of the rivals, and over time they went another way. And one so died." You'll notice the addition is a new sentence: this is because it's actually one of Terezi's personal alternations, as she is spelling the line out to Rose like I am to you. A Troll would probably understand the phrase "[The auspisticees] went another way," on their own, either because it's a stock phrase or because the implication is simply plain to them.

In the spirit of additional clarity _uber alles_, here's an edit which shouldn't be any surprise to first drafters as this arrangement was already made clear in that version. Hopefully it was clear to second drafters too, but now we'll definitely all be on the same base. Chapter 2:

GA: Essentially Though Formative Relationships Exist  
>GA: Prospective Matesprits Moirails Etc<br>TT: Yes, like the first few dates, or casual dating, on Earth.  
><em>[The addition:]<br>_GA: Also Trial Relationships To Test Someone Of Interest For Multiple Quadrants But Thats A Mercenary Way To Put It  
>GA: Thats More Just A Thing That Happens In Casual Association Than A Formal Type Of Relationship<p>

Terezi now compares not being able to find a kismesis and matesprit in time for the Drones as "something everyone thinks will never happen to them. I mean, who would be that stupid?" This was originally in the chapter and I cut it, but decided to put it back in as it demonstrates the point and reason Terezi's self-doubt was subconsciously seeded in her while talking to Dave.

Speaking of stuff I can't fix yet: "hard-forged" is an edit as well. The original line was "hard-welded".]


	6. Kiss You With Doom

**ACT 2**

* * *

><p>As Rose conversed with Terezi, another conversation had been going on several levels far below, in the Dormitories. "Dave Strider, you open this door right now or I'm taking away <em>all your CDs! Don't think I can't!<em>"

John looked at Jade cockeyed. "Really?"

Jade looked more than a little sheepish at that. "...It's the only way I know to get a reaction out of him."

Suddenly, the door opened, revealing Dave with a towel wrapped around his lower body and otherwise wet and dripping. He looked from John to Jade, as if daring one or the other to react to his partial nudity and perhaps curious which would do so first. He then said: "Listen, folks. It's time for a certain cool guy you might know to get some shuteye. Some precious beauty sleep, if you follow me. If you'll stop yelling at my door, you get one question each."

"Are you okay?" Jade spouted at once.

"Jade, that's not a very good question," John said.

"Well I think it's important!" Jade said.

"D'aww," Dave cooed. "We're getting all warm and snuggly here in the hallway. Tangle buddying it up here. Hug, Harley?" He raised one arm from his towel, which drooped precariously, and that time she did react.

"Uh... no wet naked hugs," she said.

"Y'sure? Dude?" Dave reached toward John. "Wet half-naked brohugs?" John seemed to be at an impasse. "C'mon," Dave chided. "C'mooooon!" He nabbed John by the shoulder and pulled him close. "Big fucking coward, Egbert, that's what you are. Harley?"

Jade tried not to laugh at the look on John's face in spite of herself. "No thanks."

"That's okay, Jade, this is pretty much the worst hug ever. Who taught you how to do this?" John asked.

"Cal," Dave said, completely straight-faced.

John pulled away as soon as he could. "Well," he said to Jade, "at least he's not upset."

"Hey, I'm cool," he replied. "Structurally: in one piece. Mentally: exhausted, but that's no big deal. Emotionally: aloof. Word of the fucking day. Use it in a sentence: Dave just blew off a cute alien chick like it was no thing, because he is the aloofest fucking bastard this side of... Skaia? Well let's be serious I'm all the aloof that's left in the universe. I'm like a non-renewable resource here."

"You call that scene back in the lab 'no thing'!" Jade protested, pointing back to the transportalizer that led out of Aradia's quarters. "That was... a-a very big thing! What did you do to her?"

Dave nodded, as he agreed with her early sentiments, but then said: "That's two questions. You don't get two questions, Jade, don't make me repeat myself the rules are very clear. Egbert, you're up!"

John tried for a moment to look lost in thought. "Oh, gee, Dave, I dunno, I mean, there's so much I could ask about but I think I'm gonna go with '_What the hell did you do?_' You know. For the block."

"Alright, alright, we can do this," Dave said. "So 'Rez is all on me, all hinting at some weird alien boot-knocking equivalent going down when..." Dave's routine was interrupted by a frown. "...well, okay, not really. I'm not gonna besmirch the lady's honour or anything so it wasn't really that intense all at once, but-"

"Dave," Jade interrupted, arms crossed.

"I said no." Dave insisted, as though it were obvious.

"Dave," John said, "I know Jade and I are both Professionally Single right now, but even we know that's not what normally happens when you tell a girl you don't want to go out."

Dave frowned again, this time not trying to hide it. "...I told her we should be friends." Jade and John glanced at one another. "...After I told her about Jack."

"You..." Jade glanced over at John, who had a strange, wary expression on his face. "...wait, what about Jack?"

"Oh, that's right," Dave said, his grin returning in spite of himself. "Hadn't told you, sorry about that." Dave said, enthused, as though he truly had forgotten. "Yeah, I've been fighting Jack like five, twelve times a day. I dunno sometimes. Time shit."

"What?" Jade shrieked.

"Yeah, John knows all about it, don't you bro!" Dave said. "Guess it slipped our minds, huh man?"

"John!" Jade said. As soon as she was looking at their friend and not at him, Dave hit the button to his door and the thing slammed down. "Dave!" Jade shouted at the door. For a moment, she could only stand around frustrated and confused, and so turned back to John. "John... tell me this isn't what it sounds like," she said. "Please."

Jade was not at all reassured when John felt the need to check the hall for eavesdroppers before answering. Fed up, she quickly agreed when he asked her to go into her room for privacy. She tended to her small garden as he explained, just to keep her focus, but it only helped a little. Frankly, learning what Dave and Aradia had been doing for nearly a month and a half was making Jade angrier at Jack Noir than she had ever been at anyone in her entire life.

* * *

><p>Rose's talk with Tavros was going well, at least up until the Basilisk got involved. That forced them into a bit of a pause as they started to talk about strategy, movement, and how not to get bitten in half instead, at least until the danger had passed. It had been four days since Rose had spoken to Terezi, and much to Rose's consternation, the Underlings had not all up and died overnight. In fact, Karkat had announced that morning that they weren't going to run out of XP fuel for months to come. Fantastic.<p>

There was little they could do about it. The Underlings were duplicating deep within the lab, in places they could not yet reach. It was a rudimentary sort of problem. The Trolls' lab had been divided into twelve sections by the game, each hooked to a different world and built with its own themed appearance, clues and puzzles, to ensure that the Trolls would have plenty of opportunities to create themselves no matter when they solved the games' riddles. To further enrich their experience, Sgrub had set each dungeon with auto-levelling opponents to make sure that the Trolls would be challenged no matter when they arrived across the course of the game, or in what numbers. In spite of all these measures, the Trolls had slashed and burned their way through most of the laboratory during Karkat's initial visit and their subsequent return, leaving those areas safe for habitation. That would have been the end of it, if it had it not been for one section in particular: the Underlab, home to evidence of strange experiments, vermin and disease, and to one Nepeta Leijon, extraordinaire. To tie in with its theme of abandoned mad science, this particular dungeon had brought a collection of electric lock puzzles keep up variety. A player trying to traverse it would have gone from point to point, connecting wires, hitting terminals and otherwise finding and fighting their way through the damp, rusty maze to their own birthplace. The trouble was that the dungeon had been carefully designed with all its keys and buttons placed where the player could reach them: on the side of the dungeon facing the Land of Little Cubes and Tea, not the side facing the main lab. This had left the players unable to reach most of its chambers, and those that remained could only be unlocked when Nepeta found a route through the maintenance halls, or when the constantly breeding underlings hit the buttons themselves through sheer accident, which was starting to happen with a curious frequency.

Back in the present, Tavros caught the Basilisk's attack on his lance, but before he or Rose could react further, the Underling was enveloped in a wave of blue flame. "_Geeeeeeeeze!_" Vriska tisked. ""_C8n't you two do 8ything?_"

Rose kept her mouth shut, and Tavros followed suit. Vriska had missed Tavros' quick handling of the past half dozen underlings, some with Rose's help, but Rose did not particularly care for her opinion. Indeed, if Vriska was so busy belting insults with Eridan that she didn't notice her and Tavros, Rose figured _Eridan_ couldn't either, and that was all that mattered at present. Besides, she liked what they had going. Tavros was all but ready to talk to Eridan directly.

"...Alright," Rose said, after taking a scope of the nearby area. "The next part of the plan is pretty simple." Tavros nodded. Personally, Rose could not remember just when her dating advice had segued into a point-for-point plan of action, but she was doing her best to keep it from slipping into shenanigans territory when it came to elements of the contrived and deranged. Any thought that entered her mind that she could imagine being said by John was immediately tossed. "I'll provide the atmosphere. You just get his attention and hold it."

"Got it," Tavros said. "And, uh... wait. _wHAT KIND OF ATMOSPHERE,_ are you referring to, exactly?"

Rose did not want to say it out loud. She still was not comfortable with stooping so low, no matter how much she had convinced herself that it was necessary. She felt it was the only way to convince _everyone_, especially Vriska, to be looking the other way while simultaneously not stealing away Eridan's attention. For the present, Rose changed the subject by pointing out an Imp crawling over the rail of one of the Underlab's many raised platforms. Tavros nodded and took off after it at full speed, lance level and ready. The sound of his metal feet was not long gone when it was replaced with a similar clanging nuisance.

"Ugh! If you would just watch your blind spots you wouldn't be in this mess in the first place!" Vriska struck an Imp off of Eridan's back with her nail-claws, straight across its face. While that did not kill the Imp, it looked like it would have cut deep. For its part, the Imp reacted with a simple injured reel, but it was enough for Eridan to hit it in the shin with the butt of his rifle and then hard with his fist into a nearby machine that proceeded to whine and hiss in complaint. The blow had been so solid that the Imp actually collapsed into grist, which seemed to surprise even Eridan as new.

He recovered fast enough. "Well maybe if a certain some-witch would give me some _cover_..." He snapped up his rifle and fired a shot directly over Vriska's shoulder and into a distant basilisk. She did not flinch, save to reach up, lick two fingers and check her hair for burns.

"Well!" Vriska tossed her hair once she was sure none of the ends had melted. "Karkat didn't tell me it was my job to grubsit you, why don't you take it up with him?"

Spotting trouble, Rose interrupted whatever Eridan was planning to say by opening a burst of Light just above his head. Vriska, unaffected, grinned at his yelp of pain and surprise and then outright laughed as a Basilisk dropped stunned from above and smack onto Eridan's head. She stepped just out of the way as it rolled to the floor. Rose had to wonder if she might have been able to blind Vriska as well if she put some extra effort into it, just to punish them both equally for screwing around, but that was a question for another day. For the time, she tried to capitalize on her opening by going for the Basilisk, but Vriska beat her to it with a powerful stomp of her foot.

Rose had to settle for tactics. "Both of you stop fighting each other and go cover Karkat!" she ordered. Rose might have felt a little less eager to shout orders at them if Karkat had not been demanding the same at the top of his lungs for the past five minutes.

Eridan, who was beginning to recover his eyesight, glowered in Rose's general direction. "Make us," he taunted.

"_No!_" Rose and Vriska protested in tandem. They both seemed almost relieved to hear each other say it, as well, and Vriska even threw Rose a look that said _I know, right?_ Then, as if as punishment for being on the same wavelength, Vriska grabbed Eridan by the shoulder and near threw him in Karkat's direction. Put off by the treatment, Eridan opened fire as he ran ahead, and put distance between he and his ex.

The shots, wild as they were, landed near enough to their targets that the Underlings in question were forced to respond. They did so handily: two spears snapped up and caught the beams on their reflective blades, causing them to ricochet wildly to the side. One beam caught a pneumatic tank that burst and forced Karkat to double his volume.

"Flank them! Flank them, you mulch-brained ingrates! If it didn't work the first time, why would it work now?"

Eridan, having moved into position, took another shot to one of the Underlings. This shot hit the bizzare, twisted Underling in one of its multiple flank-sides, but it caught that shot with its blade as well.

Karkat revised his plan at once. "Flank them from the _back_!"

Maybe she had spent too much time hanging out near the two of them, but Rose could almost hear Jade shout "That's not what that _means_!"

The game had identified the two Underlings as Bullion Centaurs, armed with spears. They were a late-game monster that Sgrub had delivered to some of the flat, open worlds in the Troll's set, like Tavros and Nepeta's, and Rose was already not a fan. Naturally, the game had prototyped one of the pair with Equius' centaur-lusus, creating a two-bodied creature with one upper torso that could only have been appreciated by Equius himself. No matter how poorly he phrased it, Rose suspected that Karkat's advice was correct: the game was simply not going to let any attacks past the Centaur's spears, no matter what logic would suggest.

In spite of that complication, the Centaurs were not the actual, ongoing problem. That prize fell to the Quicksilver Lich they were covering on each side, this one blessed with an impenetrable tangle of tentacles sprouting from every pore. Its voice echoed about the room, sounding for all the world like a lone priest chanting in some not-Latin, twisted but orderly and ringing with emotion. Experience with the Liches had brought Rose to understand the sound as little more than a very peculiar growling, and in a way that made it more unsettling.

As Karkat once again threw himself against the Centaur line only to be blocked at every attempt, the Lich raised one of its hands and a crop of its tentacles towards Rose and the approaching reinforcements. Its body surged tyrian purple, but this was no attack drawn from Gl'ybgolb the Screamer. The Light players turned about at once, just in time for Rose to throw up her wands as both the Basilisks Vriska had destroyed reformed and rushed her. Vriska was attacked by the lone, revived Imp, whom she rent in two with her bare hands. Luckily for Rose, the Basilisks had not been revived in good condition, and she was able to destroy one on her own, but it fell to Vriska to deal with the other. She moved fast: too fast for Rose to react before Vriska appeared behind the lizard, grabbed it by the back of the head, and drove it forward in an inopportune headbutt against Rose's face.

"...Thanks for that," Rose tried to snark, but Vriska had already turned to leave. That was probably for the best, as no one was around to hear whatever Rose had actually said past splitting headache and bloody nose. Rose left the area as quickly as she could, wiping at her face with her sleeve and hoping to be far from where the Basilisks had died before they could be revived again. The Lich continued its work, using Feferi's power rather than the prototype's, in that frusterating way that Liches could. It had been spamming the resurrection spell with such regularity that the symbol for Life had been burned into the floor below it by the power.

"So what next?" asked a friendly voice. Rose recovered herself to find that she had somehow rejoined Tavros. He paused when he noticed her injuries.

"I'm fine," Rose said, or at least fine enough not to tend to it. "What next... with Eridan?" she asked, still confused.

Tavros nodded, and began to walk with her as they tried to reach Karkat, keeping an active guard for Underlings returning to life from thin air. It was not the strangest place Rose had ever held a conversation about someone's romantic life, but it was very similar.

"I guess..." she said, trying to clear out her head still, "the plan is to go with one of John's movies. A specific one. It's less than perfect - the plan, that is, the film significantly further - but _is_ ideal. You're going to have to keep quiet or everyone's going to be a little annoyed by you talking through the movie, which is why you should be in back. Then just... talk."

"About what?"

"I don't know," Rose admitted. "I'm still thinking." In the distance, she could make out Eridan opening fire on the Centaurs a second time. When the volley became a barrage, the Centaurs began to spin their staves in full circles, deflecting every beam. Eridan shouted something about blowholes and porpoises that Rose did not understand - nor want to - and redoubled his fire to no impact as Karkat shouted at him to "move around or something!"

"...start with a compliment," Rose said to Tavros, out of ideas. She turned to Tavros and saw him watching Eridan, a look on his face halfway between pride and concern. Rose sighed and clapped him on the shoulder. "Let's go rescue him. From himself if no one else."

As they approached, Rose and Tavros dealt with another revived Imp, but also had to put up with a hailstorm of encrypted captcha cards careening their way. Sollux was throwing them at the opposite Centaur to keep him pinned down, but by the sounds of things, he was running out of ammunition.

"Don't need that," he was saying. "Don't _think_ I need that." _Slice._ "Well I hope not."

"Hey, I have an idea!" Karkat growled to him from the opposite side. "How 'bout-"

"You couldn't hit him if it was the broad side of your hive, KK," Sollux said before Karkat could even finish.

"Me! _Your lusus_ couldn't-"

The near Centaur caught Karkat's blade, but he and Sollux continued bantering. Rose was not sure what they were saying, for as they continued to one-up each other, the game went into graphical conniptions to announce their fraymotif. The world went scab-red between them, and then bright red as the fraymotif split the Underlings along imaginary veins. But it was still imaginary in the end. Though all the revived Underlings dropped back into nonexistence, the Centaurs and Lich marched on at three-quarters health.

"Now _that's_ not a bad idea!" Vriska suddenly clapped Rose and Tavros on the shoulders from behind. "C'mon!"

"But...!" Rose had suddenly made two separate, unfortunate observations. "I don't have any!"

"Mine'll work," Vriska said, matter-of-factly.

Tavros nodded. "Just piggyback on her Light. I don't... actually know what it'll do, though, now that I think of it."

"But..." And this was the real kicker. "...I don't know how." Rose had went Grimdark more or less the same time any of them had enough money to buy a fraymotif, and had remained so until just before they had to escape. She was not even sure if anyone but Dave had bought any.

Vriska could not seem to decide between a gloat and a groan, and instead said "Just work with me, okay?" and flash-stepped. Tavros was no more helpful, but he tried, giving Rose a jerk of his head that just might have been meant as a wink. Maybe.

"You goin' in with us?" asked a gruff voice from behind Rose. Rose was getting tired of these people popping up when she wasn't looking, and was going to complain to Eridan, but he stopped her by giving her a hard shove toward the fight. "Let's go then, we need some cover!"

When Rose turned about to prevent a fall, she found herself face to blade with the nearest Centaur, which was now the one with two sets of golden udders and one even more magnificent moustache. Her needlewands went up and she caught the blade on the branch-arms of the Quills, stopping the blow hard in its tracks. Rose shoved the Centaur off of her and dove in to attack, but sure enough, every one of her strikes crashed hard against the Centaur's impeccable spear. Rose would have been frustrated by the games' blatant cheating, but as the Centaur went wide, its lusus prototyping obliterated anything caught with spear or hind legs. Really, she realized, that she was able to block at all meant that the game was cheating for her almost as much. Another swing went for Rose's head, and she ducked out of the way. In the distance, she could almost make out a voice, but she was too focused on survival to pick out the individual words. As the Centaur's glimmering hooves raised to crush her, Rose fell back entirely, and onto her behind.

"I said 'Now!' As in: 'Pull out!' Do you _want_ to get crushed?" Vriska's sneaker suddenly came into view atop a nearby raised platform. "_I guess we'll have to do this my way._" Vriska tossed back her hair with one hand. "...Karkat."

Karkat risked a glance half-over his shoulder, and Rose saw his eyes go wide before he threw himself violently out of the way. "Shit!" he shouted, half because of Vriska and half the scalding radiator he had collided with in his escape. "That's not going to _work_, you know!" he scolded as he pulled away behind them both.

"Not the point," Vriska said, almost bored. Suddenly, her eye flashed blue and thin bolts of Light shot out toward the Underlings. For a moment, this did little more than draw their attention, but Vriska quickly followed up with her dice. The nearest Centaur halted as the Octet rolled to a stop at its feet, and it watched as the dice leapt up into the air well after they had initially finished moving. The dice struck out at the three Underlings like blades, three times each. Sure as ever the Centaurs deflected each attack, but that hardly bothered Rose as three did get through to the Lich. Finally, the dice bounced back off of their targets and straight to Vriska's hand. "Tavros!" Vriska commanded.

Tavros moved in from wherever he had been waiting for a signal, but to Rose's surprise, Vriska suddenly bolted. Rose found out why the moment she glanced back at the Centaurs, and found that Tavros was attempting to drive one of them away from the Lich, even though that meant moving it towards her. She jumped to one side, then the other, and even felt confident enough after the second jump to cut in with her wands, but that proved to be a mistake she could not have predicted as the Centaur collided with the same radiator as Karkat. It kicked out in pain, hitting Rose hard in the leg even even as she stabbed at it. Rose twisted on her ankle as she fell, her head hitting the nearest platform, and she gave a short scream of pain.

"Rose!" Tavros called. She looked up and saw him near, hand outstretched. She took it and he pulled her first close and then up. "Eridan, your turn!" he called as signal, and with a strange whine, Tavros' legs kicked him into a flash-step and on to safe ground. Despite his overt delicacy, Rose had to shout out again as her leg crashed back down to the floor when Tavros came to a stop. As an apology, Tavros even gentler than before as he let Rose go, if that were possible. As he guided her to a nearby rail, Rose felt the strange feel of the moulting skin on his arms. Where the other Trolls' were different than a Human's - imperceptibly alien in a way she was not sure how to place, rough without being truly rough, and firmer overall - Tavros' skin had become truly thick, even course where he had scratched free new skin from under the old. He started to apologize to her for the rough handling, but he was overwhelmed by the sound of Eridan's rifle.

Rose noticed what was happening before Tavros, but not by much. Once again the air distorted with a fraymotif's light and Tavros only spared a moment to say "'scuze me!" before stepping away. Together, he and his friends gathered and stood like an arrow-point as the game channeled a tornado of junk from the room toward the Centaur, and a hurricane of archaisms at Rose via the GUI, where it tried to squeeze "Breath", "Hope" and "Light" into a Divine Wind pun that made her head hurt.

Whether thanks to the power of the fraymotif or the sheer number of things the Centaur was crashing into as it was pushed aside, the trio's target died, though it was a close thing. Rose was still not sure how the fraymotifs were supposed to work, but she supposed its apparent weakness made sense. They were showy things, and a waste of time by any degree, but if the combinations really went beyond two, the game would have to be frugal with damage if it was going to save anything impressive for five elements, nine, or the vaunted twelve. But one step at a time, and one step backward, as the Lich quickly revived the Centaur. The Lich was unable to bring its guardian back in any position but where it had fallen, luckily. Separated from its partner, the healthy Centaur roughly but correctly shoved its charge back against the nearest wall so that it could protect it solo.

For its part, the revived mutant Centaur charged its killers the moment it returned, a rush of gold come from thin air and not soon to be stopped. As they were about to be run down, Vriska and Eridan dove aside, but to Rose's surprise, Tavros stood his ground and caught his opponent with his lance. This the game ignored entirely, flagrantly throwing out all pretence to enforce the Centaur's frontal defence. Realizing he was in trouble, Tavros reached out and caught the thing's spear with his hands. Rose and his friends watched gobsmacked before Eridan recovered his countenance and shouted: "Careful, Tav, we'll get behind 'im!"

Seeing they were all right, Rose choked down another one of John's repulsive gushers and endured the strange feeling of her painless ankle setting itself right again. "One of these days," she said to herself, "everyone's going to come to me with body horror dreams and they're not going to remember where it came from." By the time that had finished its ugly work, Rose concluded that Tavros and his friends had things better in hand than the others, and so went to join Karkat and Sollux.

"That was a valuable heirloom, jackass," Sollux was saying to Karkat, probably referring to a severed encrypted card lying half by their feet and half kicked to the opposite side of the room.

"I don't care if it was Her Imperious Condescension's pearl-handled fin chiseller, I'm gonna take the shots I can get!"

Sollux actually growled. "But you can't make any shots if _they block everything you throw at them!_"

Rose darted in between them to take a few shots of her own, just as fruitlessly. "How did you deal with these things in the game?" she asked.

"They were usually outside," Karkat admitted. "Walls kind of ruin the whole 'blocks everything but the rear' gimmick."

"What about area attacks?" Rose asked. The gusher had filled her with good health and adrenaline, and somewhere deep inside, the Seer in her itched to strategize. "Like Vriska's dice, if we could rely on them. It's time to widen our net, with literal nets necessary, but seeing as have we don't have any... Sollux, you're a Mage. You have any relevant spells?"

"The Imp's using FF's defence spells," Sollux admitted, and his tone slowly slid into place as talked number crunching and game mechanics. "_iit'2 only goiing two take one-quarter damage from 2pell2 and... half from fiire or 2omethiing 2tupiid liike that untiil iit clear2 out. ii've only got one 2pell that'll do that._"

"Would it be enough?" Rose asked. Behind her, she heard the other Bullion Centaur burst into grist, but the Lich was now devoting all of its power to keeping the players split, and it was restored at once.

"No..." Sollux trailed off, and Karkat scowled. "_but... liife ii2 antiithetiical two doom._"

"Oh," Karkat said with a roll of his eyes. "This."

"What?" Rose asked. "What is it?"

Karkat shook his head as if he hoped that would dissuade her, but Rose was adamant, and after Karkat had pressed back a renewed counterattack from the Centaur, he answered. "Look, you all bailed before you spent much time chit-chatting with your Denizens. But you talked to Cetus. She waste much time calling herself the, I dunno, 'Prawn of Shade' or something?"

"No..." Rose admitted. To be frank, she did not much remember her talk with Cetus at all. She did not much _like_ to remember it at all. She remembered the look on Jade's face when she found Dave dead, John shaking and she with her skin scorched black by the void, and she did not want to press the memory much further. Jade had made her thoughts on the matter perfectly clear, and John had backed her up when he got to his feet. It had taken Rose some time to see reason, even as the skies were going dark above them. In the end she had gone back to her world, into depth and pressure to find a cave under the waves and learn a way to sooth her mind and body. But she did not remember how.

Karkat ignored any look of apprehension Rose might have given him "Well my point's this: when Miss No Respect For Property Rights over there fought Scorpio with her brownblooded dice-caddy, I bet you Diamonds to Build Grist Scorpio spent half her time babbling about 'stagnation' and the other half about being 'the Lash of Shade.'"

"Counter-elements?" Rose supposed.

Karkat nodded as a captcha block flipped haphazardly over his head and toward their opponents. "And you won't think that's trite once your skin starts splitting whenever they cast a spell. Ever see Equius use his powers?" Rose thought back to the fight with the Adonis, and several of the ones she had seen while on patrol, and could think of no such instance. "Well that's because you're always hanging out with Kan, or Nepeta's hanging out with Jade. He'd start ripping them apart. Actually, I've told Harley to stow it too, but gog knows we need to teleport more often than we need a fucking black hole in the middle of the floor. Heirs. Subtlety of an pneumatic asphalt randomizer."

"I can't imagine where you'd get the impression for such a blanket statement," Rose said.

"Hey, quie-"

But as they had been talking, they had missed the enemy move. The Centaur, its hooves replaced with blonde-furred cat paws, making it look not unlike a hippogriff, pounced into their midst and scattered them. Rose held back against it as Sollux retreated, but Karkat was faster on the uptake than both of them. He charged for the Lich as it was left alone, and at first Rose thrilled to see it. But for all the fuss they had made about engaging the Lich at all, they had forgotten the plain and simple fact that it was a competent foe on its own. Though Karkat cut the thing once, it seized the arm with its web of tentacles Karkat himself by the throat with a free arm. Rose's elation fell to panic as the tentacles began to wrench his shoulder.

"Oh, gog fucking dammit!" Karkat shouted. "Sollux, _fuck!_ Donﾒt be an ass about this!"

Sollux seemed more than a little hesitant. "KK, I'm talking about **Unconditional**. If I'm wrong, I'm out and so are you."

Rose was heavily pressed, but knew well what that meant, even without a Doom player in her session. The name gave it away. Jade's was called **Unlimited**. Dave's, **Infinite**; John's, **Final**; and Rose's own **Pinnacle**. Each, the game had uselessly tagged, "_Learned at Level 99._"

The Lich's chanting growl had begun to rise in fervour as it worked harsh, personal work on Karkat's arm. He fought back with all his free limbs, though the Lich did all in its power to grab those as well. The sole saving grace seemed to be that it needed one hand free to direct Feferi's powers to the weakening double-Centaur. "Does this situation look like it's improving with you doing shit?" Karkat barked to Sollux. "Am I missing that part?"

Sollux hesitated, but only for a moment. He and Rose both saw as Karkat plunged his hand into the nest of tentacles to throttle the Lich, committing them both to action. Sollux began to focus for a moment, and whispered "Doom." And saying so, he flexed his hand.

Rose, who could see him at the edge of her vision as she danced with the Centaur, thought she saw his eyes flash in the way they did when he fired his usual beams of power, but the flash abruptly stopped. In their stead, the world flashed bright colours instead. For a moment Rose's eyes blinked with afterimages, but then the pulse came again and seemed to consume the world in flat, dark green. Rose could not even see her own hands, but she could hear as the air seemed to be drawn out of the room and Eridan whispered. "Oh, fuck, not again."

Only Sollux and the Underlings could be seen clear, Karkat a dim shadow in the Lich's grasp, still struggling. Sure enough, the Lich's skin seemed to peel - Karkat had not exaggerated about that. With effort, it seemed, Sollux raised one arm towards Rose's Centaur. The room shook for a moment until, in the blink of an eye, the Centaur became covered in screaming, torn flesh. Rose recognized them at once as what Kanaya had once referred to off-hand as "our native necrotic fauna." The bodies of animals and beings thrashed about the Centaur in an assult from nowhere, dozens of the undead drawn raw as the essence of Doom itself.

A second gesture from Sollux had the second Centaur under siege, and a third, the Lich, which thrashed about as its health was assailed by both the creatures and the sick green air, though a film of fuschia light seemed to coat it as every blow was struck. Rose could barely make out the individual zombies in the dogpile. Desert creatures, forest, Trolls, Carapaces, Human, moving in and against one another, striking past and through one another to their true targets. Their faces, uncanny and lifelike, bit down for some and stared in odd directions for others, with white-flooded eyes. Even the Centaurs could not move for the weight of the things, and the revived Centaur collapsed underneath them. Rose watching as the creatures that had assailed it melted into the ground like red-white foam on the beach of green.

Sollux held his hands high, toward the remaining Underlings, and as he did the Lich began to topple. Karkat continued to work in the midst, his friend's attack leaving him untouched. His weight dragged the Lich down, but he was so faint in the green that Rose only realized his impact in afterthought. For her and the others, and Sollux as well, it was as though the Lich were falling in weakness and death the Underlings would never truly know, and if by weight then only under that hundred foul and biting things. And as it fell, it reached past Karkat, towards Sollux, in gesture or search of purchase Rose did not know. Sollux's arms began to droop, to fail him under the straight, but he held them shaking toward the Lich. And the Lich's paean scream, now so at odds with its condition, rose even further in zeal and soared in pitch, until Rose could almost understand the beast as it went on raving, singing blessings of Life to the Sovereign Slayer and praise to the Throne of Derse, until the end. The fleshy swarm fell away towards them, and Sollux's arms gave out.

Karkat, who unlike Rose had knew exactly what was going to happen, rushed forward against the Centaur, who did not even seem to notice the sudden disappearance of its assailants. The Underling rounded on him as ever, before he could even close the gap, and so they began to duel.

"I'm fine!" Sollux called to Rose as he caught his breath. Rose needed no other instruction. She stepped behind the Centaur as Dave had once taught her and stabbed it deep with both wands, finishing it. She met Karkat's eyes as the golden beast disappeared between them, and saw as he let the weight of his sickles finally win out.

"Did you level?" he asked, as if that would at least have made things worthwhile.

Rose's heart sank a little as she thought about it. "...No." Karkat growled and walked away. In the distance, however, Tavros gave Rose a thumbs up. Rose could not help but notice that he had to remove his hand from Eridan's to do so. For his part, Eridan kept a wary eye on Sollux until they were long out of the Underlab. Rose never did learn how he had first experienced the spell.

"Hey," Karkat said to Sollux. Sollux, whose eyes were screwed up tight, shook his head only slightly. Karkat snapped his fingers in Sollux's face and Sollux jolted, and fell against him. Karkat righted him as Rose approached to see if he needed help.

"Hey," Karkat said. "Hey. You were right." He shook Sollux lightly, perhaps to encourage him to stand under his own power. "Just dropped it exactly, with your fucked up math brain. Didn't he, Lalonde?"

Rose did not have to lie to know how close it had been, although she could not help notice Karkat downplaying his own involvement. "Just made it," she said. Looking over Sollux's shoulder, Rose saw Eridan edging towards the two for a closer look. Rose warned him away at once.

"You and your fuckin' fiduspawn elemental weakness crap," Karkat said. "It's been forever since that came up. What reminded you, Feferi?" Sollux ignored him. Karkat, looking somewhat haggard by this, grunted and said: "What, you kiss her funny or something?"

Sollux, gripping Karkat's arm, slowly pulled himself up. "...I don't kiss FF with Doom, KK."

"I'm just saying!" Karkat said, and he slowly turned Sollux about and began to walk him back toward the transportalizer, one step at a time. The others followed, Vriska bumping herself in between Tavros and Eridan en route. As Vriska decided to start talking to Eridan, Tavros stepped away, and up towards Rose. Politely, he handed her a towel that she used to clean her face.

"You know," Rose said, casually as he approached, "jumping in front of a charging Centaur coming for you and certain friends shows a certain pathological disregard for your own safety."

Tavros blushed slightly. "Um... well, getting trapped behind a Centaur being attacked _bY, sOMEONE ELSE SHOWS A CERTAIN PATHOLOGICAL DESIRE TO,,, UH,,,_"

Rose patted his arm. "Nice opening, at least," she condoled.

Tavros brightened. "Thanks."

Rose returned the towel. "I have to admit, I can't stop thinking about the Lich."

"He was sort of, stubborn," Tavros said.

"Yes," Rose admitted, "but more at the end. I had never really thought of it before, but the Underlings serve the Dersites as a sort of ancillary force they're only allowed to direct at us. But even though they're randomly generated, they still seem to serve the structure, have you noticed? They're still a part of Dersite society, or at least they think they are, if this was any indication. And now I can't stop thinking about the Dersites! Imagine! An entire culture dedicated to the destruction of all current culture and the cessation of further! And yet, they have a strict and solid feudal society, in spite of themselves: a necessary price to pay, maybe, for the end of progress and creativity? And while the Dersites have personalities, the Underlings are programmed to be loyal from spawn to despawn." Rose's mind began to work overdrive. "...What was it you said your Denizens were saying every time you met them?" she asked. "I'm starting to consider this in from the perspective of an organized, apocalyptic religion. Liches and Bishops serving them for preachers, with Knights and Centaurs as the bodyguards, enforcers... martial elite of the religeous order? ...Or maybe I'm being misled by what we saw of the Centaur today. Perhaps I should be seeing them as the martial elite of the whole society? Good question: Is the Dersite loyalty, artificial or otherwise, tied feudally, to the Throne like the Lich said, or theologically, to their anuracidal supercult?"

Tavros looked as though some of his brain had fused. Rose was familiar with the expression. "...Like the Lich said..." he struggled, "...what?"

"Well..." she started.

"No," he said, cutting her off. "I mean... the Lich said what?"

_Oh,_ Rose realized. _The senses thing._ The Lich's coherent scream must have only reached her specially tuned ears. "...Never mind," she said, though she gathered her thoughts all the same. It was clear she had lost her audience anyways. To them, the Lich had simply reached out, screamed and bowled over.

They continued to walk, and Sollux was silent for some time, before he muttered: "...Kiss _you_ with Doom."

"Pah," Karkat grunted.

Sollux chuckled. "You'll be all 'Oh no, this was a terrible idea, I'm being pulled inside out by Doom but I'm still gonna say one last raving, idiot thing before I die."

"Look, I'm not Life, it wouldn't happen to me. I was talking about mechanics, you limp ass-snake." He had to heft Sollux up as he spoke.

But Sollux was enjoying himself now. "Oh, come on, KK, your waste track is coming out backwards through your side, you can do better than that for last words."

"You want my vivisected epiphany splayed all over your face with my candy-rot mutant veinspray? All right." Karkat hefted Sollux's arm up over his shoulder properly, and he used his freed hand to unlock the door they had sealed to keep the Underlings from bolting. "It's 'I, Karkat Vantas, being of sound mind and inverted body, do hereby will all my computer programs to the Human, John Egbert.'"

"Oh gog."

"That's right, fucker," Karkat said. "If I'm gonna die from your shit kissing skills, I'm taking you all with me in a programming disaster like the world has never seen."

"We won't last five minutes. You magnificent asshole." Sollux shook a fist at Karkat.

"Well," Karkat said, "if we're all gonna die, we at least shouldn't have to die without a good last meal. I'm-a go wake the chef." This was greeted with a certain excitement from those gathered, even Sollux. "Then we can all cram the crap into the lab and watch shit on the TV until we're sick. If Lalonde starts rambling about Carapace psychology again, we'll aim for her."

"You're just provoking me, you know," Rose taunted.

"Wow, Kar," Eridan said. "Just gonna go throw a whole fucking party, huh? We should get someone to hit their head or something every time you're on shift."

"It could be you," Sollux mumbled.

Eridan rolled his eyes, and as they had arrived at the transportalizer, gestured to his friends. "C'mon guys," he said, and led them out.

"Hey!" Karkat shouted after them. "You tell the others! I sure ain't fucking doing it!"

"Just so long as he doesn't have to tell TZ," Sollux commented, and then: "Ow!" He laughed at Karkat. "That actually hurt!" he said, pushing Karkat's grip off of his arm. Karkat did not entirely let him go, considering he would have fallen, but adjusted his grip. "Sore spot?" Sollux asked, ironically.

"What Terezi wants to do with her time..." Karkat started, but then seemed to remember Rose was there. Rose could see him coming up with an order the moment he met her eyes and briefly considered making a run for it, even back where she had come. "Lalonde," he said, too soon. "Listen: today's Nepeta's hunting day, which means she's cavorting around the Underlab like a cavetroll straight out of the stone age. No computer." Just because Nepeta lived in the Underlab had not forced her to go on all patrols.

"Really?" Rose asked. "I'm surprised you're so invested in her schedule, Karkat."

"Hey, shu- Both of you shut up!" Karkat rapped Sollux on the head when he had begun to laugh again. "I know everyone's schedule, all right?"

"Oh yeah, because that's not creepier at all," Sollux said

Karkat pretended to ignore him, though the intent did not reach his face. "Look, Rose: just find her and tell her to get her fuzzy behind up here with the rest of us or I won't hear the end of it. She'll probably want to eat whatever rabid thing she finds down here, but if you're hungry, I'll make sure the kitchen stays open."

Rose was half tempted to refuse to order, especially because Karkat's movie plans played wonderfully into her and Tavros', but Rose resisted. She could convince John's selection of film via pesterchum as well as any other means. "All right," she said.

"Third door on the right, left, second right," Karkat said. "After that, I have no idea. She's probably pretending it's a goddamned jungle with climbing trees. Keep your chat open," he added as he took Sollux through to the transport pad. "If there're any other loose Underlings, sound the bell."

"What a delightful thought to have before throwing me somewhere on my own," Rose mused as she left them. Karkat ignored the jibe and instead began to help Sollux through the transportalizer. When Rose was out of normal hearing range, she heard Sollux speak again.

"KK," he whispered.

"_WHAT?_" Karkat shouted. Clearly Rose had missed an even softer whisper.

"Shh!" Sollux cautioned. "Look, it's... forget it."

"Oh... for fuck's sake, you're not doing this," Karkat said. "C'mon, out!"

"It's nothing," Sollux tried, and stepped backward, though by the sound of things this just caused him to trip over the platform.

"Oh, now you see that?" Karkat said. "That's not nothing."

"That's me being a clumsy ass, that's not the... the thing, okay?" Sollux and Karkat shuffled about for a bit as they got him back to his feet. "Look, it's just... the Lich." Sollux lowered his voice, to the point that Rose could not hear him as clearly as she would have wanted. "I just think I have to talk to AA." A footstep. "Just gimmie some room, okay?"

"...Yeah," Karkat confirmed, and Sollux used the transportalizer. Rose knew it was him because, after he had gone, Karkat added: "...whatever that means."

Karkat left soon after, and Rose pressed on, taking the route she had been given. She was distracted, her mind wandering from Sollux, Aradia and Karkat to Tavros and Eridan, and the battle that had just passed. By the time she had found the entrance to Nepeta's apparent hunting ground, something odd had occurred to her. She came to remember Eridan and Vriska's reaction to Tavros catching the Centaur, with his bare hands no less. Rose had to admit, that had been impressive, certainly, but had not seemed strange at the time, given that all the Trolls had demonstrated feats of strength with their game levels. It was as Rose searched the ground for Nepeta's footprints or any other sign of her having been there, Rose hit on it what had so shocked Tavros' friends: the plain fact that the Centaur had been the one prototyped with Equius' lusus, and had very near his strength.

That simply didn't fit with what Rose had seen and understood of the game's powers. It didn't follow the trend. While she could imagine Equius himself, Aradia, or perhaps even John stopping the charging Centaur (John taking after his adoptive father in the strangest ways), they were where Rose drew the line. Not Tavros. Certainly not. He had never been that strong. At least, certainly not before the moult.

As it often did on the issue of Trolls, Rose's mind drifted back to Kanaya, who had once called the levels a multiplication of natural abilities, not power spun from thin air. That had implications. It meant that, though he did not seem to have much changed, in his moult even weedy Tavros had grown stronger: stronger than all but the strongest of his fellow-players. What did that mean for Eridan and Vriska? What did that mean for Equius? Questions spilled from there as Rose searched. As instructed, Rose kept her chat open, but it was another pesterlog that she kept in her mind.

* * *

><p>Jade Harley was going to do it. She had barricaded herself in the wedge between Karkat and Sollux's desk in the corner of the main lab and had wallpapered the corner with tall sheets of brown paper that soon became covered in sketches, equations and notations that spilled onto loose-leaf papers stacked ramshackle about the floor. She had even set up additional desks that she used to extend her domain: more to cut everyone else off from her than to use as a writing surface, though that came with time. Some would later question why she was working in the computer room at all, as opposed to one of the hundreds of empty rooms in the laboratory, and she would answer them by dragging them into her realm by sleeve or collar and not letting them leave until they had answered a series of complicated questions that painted no clear picture of her end goal. But Jade's end goal was simple, underneath the details. She was going to take Jack Noir out behind the woodshed and blow his head off.<p>

It had started with Dave. His door had only just shut behind him the day after his tidy escape when Jade had stepped out of her own room, pushed him back into the door and demanded to know everything he knew about Jack. His reply (after "Uh... whoa," and the inevitable dive off the rails in that direction) was the basis of Jade's initial brainstorming. Jack still preferred to fight with his sword. Marial abilities: check. Left arm still missing. Fantastic. Energy beams: Jade supposed this was a power borrowed from Bec. Noted, plans to counteract forthcoming. Time travel. That was bad business, and not just on its own. That meant Jack had the Lich-like power to use the prototype's player's Element as well as the prototype's itself. Definitely bad. He had not used Breath or Light powers, or anything derived from the other three prototypes, but only "not yet." Next up: he could teleport. Teleportation was also probably a First Guardian power, but it could also be a Lich-style derived Space power from her. Jade was not certain, but she knew that even if it was one, he could probably access the other, so both would have to be accounted for. And so it went. Over time, the plans became less of a hypothetical dragging to a hypothetical woodshed and more a hypothetical attempt to pluck Jack's hypothetical feathers one by one before the dragging could commence (plucking literal feathers was struck through as a "pretty stupid idea!"). She might not have liked the way her plan was going, or even the very idea of so carefully arranging Jack's death, but Jade Harley was going to do it. No one was going to hurt her friends on her watch again.

It was to this end that she booked an appointment with Aradia. There didn't seem to be any sense in scaring or cajoling the robotic Troll into helping her no matter how well it had worked on Dave, but just like Dave her time was at a premium and she was even less likely to share it with Jade. Jade set up the meeting just as Karkat and Rose went out on patrol, and she and Aradia sequestered themselves away from the other occupants of the room for a good two hours. Aradia answered all of Jade's questions, though she seemed somewhat surprised by how much Jade seemed to understand. Jade didn't understand why everyone seemed so surprised by this. It wasn't that hard, really, when you were the granddaughter of a mad scientist, or when your powers gave you the uncanny knack for tracking precise distances in whatever units of measurement you chose.

In time, the sheets filled up and while Jade was still not quite sure of the particulars, her base plan was coming to light. Aradia seemed to agree with her conclusions as they went on, but especially on the fact that neither of them actually liked the plan, even if it might work. No matter their efforts, they could not come up with a way to do away with Jack without getting near him. When the meeting came to its unintentional close, they had just shifted gears altogether. Now they tried to find a way to make sure Jack could not be anywhere _but_ near them.

It was in the middle of this discussion that Sollux arrived through the central transportalizer just after Eridan, Vriska and Tavros. Aradia acknowledged him at once, or rather her eye lights blinked, but they had for everyone else as well, and she simply continued with what she had been saying. When Sollux did not step off the platform, Jade looked up and noticed his condition.

"Are... you okay, Sollux?" she asked.

"I... uh..." Sollux wobbled in place. He was looking at Aradia, at first, but as Jade watched, his eyes flicked to his computer, and he took one stumble towards it.

Aradia let out an aggravated sigh and turned to him, suddenly showing more personality than she had the entire interview with Jade. "Sollux, if you want to talk to me..." she started, irritated, before she finally got a good look at him. Even Jade could see something had happened down in the Underlab, and she was no robot. "...Unbelievable," Aradia said. "Has Karkat let this get that far out of control?"

"Oh, thanks," said the man himself as he arrived. Almost eager to ignore them, he took an interest in Jade's work, instead, and pushed between Sollux and Aradia to reach her. "Why the hell," he said as he approached the other desks, "is there twice as much written on your crazy-board than there was when I lef-"

Jade grabbed him by the sleeve and pulled him into her office. "You are so _rude_!" she told him, and then pulled him even further. "And stupid, even."

"Hey, I just hauled his ass out of that scuzz-farm Nepeta picked for a house! If she wants to start something-"

"KK, shut the fuck up," Sollux said. He guided Aradia in the opposite direction. As they went, Jade heard him say: "AA, I can't do it any more, we've gotta talk about it."

"Since when are you this good at math?" Karkat said, in his usual overt speaking voice, as he peered at a long column of figures.

"Shh!" Jade hissed. "For your information," she repeated from a similar discussion with John, "I've always-"

Karkat rolled his eyes. "Look, Lady Shush. I don't want to eavesdrop on those two, so I frankly don't see why I should be helping you."

"I'm not eavesdropping!" Jade whispered. "I'm trying to not talk over them like a _jerk_!"

Evidentially, her insult was loud enough as it was, as Sollux raised his voice as he shouted to Aradia. "...ll maybe I'm upset it's because I just _roasted_ an Underling with my matesprit's element alive _in mine_, but all I could think about was, oh, hm, what was that? Very familar. Burned someone alive with elements, they fell down dead screaming... It's on the tip of my tong-_iit'2 what ii diid two you!_"

Everyone else in the room looked up at the shouting. Compared to them, Aradia was almost unresponsive and did not so much as flinch. "Sollux, you are not going to hurt Feferi. I know that must be an awful thing to think about but-"

"I don't _care_ about FF right now...!" Sollux trailed off and then shook his head as if to wake himself. "You know what I mean! We have to talk about this. We have to talk about this, and you can't just walk away and pretend not to be dead like you did on Alternia, or that you're _busy_, or whatever crap you're doing with your time!" He pointed to Jade. "Because I donﾒt know! You plug yourself in and that's all anyone gets! I don't know so much as two things!"

"You never asked," Aradia said, a small trace of emotion sneaking back into her voice.

"Oh, well, I can't imagine why I wouldn't do that. Problem solved! It's got nothing to do with you turning into a bitch and pushing us all away, gog knows." he said.

"Sollux, what are you angry about?" she asked. "The Imp, my death-"

"I want to _talk_ about your death and I'm _angry_ because I can't talk to you about anything because you're so busy or some shit! What the hell is this you're doing, anyways?" Sollux stomped away from Aradia and pushed past Karkat and Jade - even though they had given him more than enough room - and began to take in the calculations and sketches. A few quick glances had him saying: "This a weapon, or a shield? For what?"

"Sollux," Aradia said, not leaving her spot. "I want to talk to you and I think you want to talk to me, but if you're going to be like this, _i'm just g0ing to wait for y0u t0 switch m00ds because this isn't getting anything d0ne._"

"That? Is exactly what I'm talking about," Sollux said, pointing at her. "That is the exact... the exact..."

Jade looked to Karkat as Sollux trailed off and then began to stare closer at her tiny handwriting. What enthusiasm his counterattack had given him to continue the conversation quickly burned up, and he began to take in the blueprints at length. Half-way through his search, he turned to Jade. "_...you're iin2ane._" He turned back to the prints in a daze. "_tz come2 to me wantiing to talk to the human2 and ii thiink 'oh, they look harmle22 and 2tupiid,' 2o ii hook her up, but no! they're ab2olutely fuckiing crazy!_" He glanced at the next page, and was so repulsed at the idea of looking at more that he began to pace away. "_thii2 ii2 all my fault. we're 2crewed._"

"Yeaaah..." Karkat said, guiding him out of the corner. "You go ponder that, why not. You!" he said to Jade. "...What the fuck is this? I think I deserve an explanation that isn't being lisp-ranted!"

Jade decided it would be easier just to answer him instead of telling him off about Sollux. "It's for Jack," she said. When that did not scare him off, she sighed and explained: "I was listening to Nepeta talk about today's hunt the other. And I was angry..." she explained, watching Sollux go, "...because of something Dave said. And I thought, 'Geeze, she has item generators, fifteen friends with all the power in the universe, and her own. If she'd just use it all, she'd be done already and she could help me think of something to something about Jack.' But then I thought... well, maybe I should be using all our powers and tech." Jade pointed to the most complete diagram of her plans: a large, hypothetical container. "...It's a rat trap."

"Hm..." Karkat took a look at the diagrams himself, but it was obvious he had no idea what he was looking at. "And how are we keeping him from break out of said trap? He says, waiting for the soul crushing news?"

Jade sighed, watching Sollux pace back and forth. "We've got a backup plan, that's about it," she said, pointing to the sheets that had set Sollux off.

Karkat followed her eyes. "This is a bad backup plan?" As he paced, Sollux muttered something about Jack tearing them apart, one by one. Aradia reached out to halt him, but he swerved by.

"Yup," Jade answered Karkat.

"And is there any chance at all that any better else is going to work?"

"With our luck?" Jade asked. "Let's be honest here. We've been trapped in this box for a month and a half our extra lives are gone."

He sighed. "This is alo the only plan we've had in a month and a half. Let's hear it, then."

"If we can get him in the trap?" Jade said, "he'll lose most of his critical powers. We'll be able to fight him in person."

"Still waiting for it."

"But if we stop distracting him for any length of time, he'll use the Red Miles to tear apart the trap with us in it." Karkat was about to make a smart remark, so Jade decided to finish talking. "Anyone who makes it out won't have so much as a platform left to fight on if they can't float. And either way, we won't be able to retreat."

Karkat growled, a long, extended noise to let Jade know just how he felt. "...And now my day is complete," he said, shaking his hands at the paper. "We have the perfect cover to strike out and hit the bastard but the only plan we have to use it is to build an excuse to leave it!" But Jade knew he felt the same way she did. It was the only idea any of them seemed to have.

"Sollux!" Aradia said, finally breaking her statue-stance to grab hold of his arm. He gasped sharply, as if pulled from the water, and looked, confused, toward her glassy eyes. "Look, I know the news isn't good but don't you trust any of us to pull it off?" She shot a glare at Karkat as well. "...Look," she said to Sollux. I'd rather you shout and blow up at me than dig a rut into the floor ranting about doom! I'm tired of doom, I've been trying to do something about it." She gestured toward Jade, though Jade knew this was a bluff. Still, she was touched. "We're still alive, okay? And we're staying that way!"

To Jade's surprise, Karkat actually smiled, but Aradia did not notice, as Sollux's eyes began to well up. "Oh... god," she said. "Sollux, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything. I screwed up when I got angry about your moods and I know they aren't your fault and-"

You sound like yourself again," Sollux interrupted, sounding more gruff than Jade would have expected with him in tears. "...When the fuck did that happen?" he added, with a laugh. "I thought it was buried under one count of dead and a half ton of horsefucker tech!"

"_...i d0n't know_" she said, and as she was focusing on it, her emotion failed. "A while. It takes some effort some times. Sometimes it doesn't take any effort at all."

"I thought you were gone," he said. Sollux's voice faltered. "I guess you're right. I didn't think you could... AA, I wanna talk to you again."

"We are talking," she said, but the emotion was back and she seemed happy to mean it.

"I mean more than this. I mean... we kind of screwed up what we used to have, whatever that was gonna be."

"What was that going to be?" Jade asked Karkat. He shook his head and made a gagging noise to reply.

"And I know I'm sort of an asshole," Sollux had been saying when Jade interrupted. In response to Karkat, he added, "and I know I'm sort of tied in with a lot of assholes." Karkat flipped him off. "But I wanna start from scratch," he said. "I'm sorry about being a dick just now. And about everything... else. Can we be friends again?"

Jade, who understood enough about the Troll's trial relationships to think she understood what was happening, tried to take special interest in her drawings. Karkat, seeing her, said "Oh, is it suddenly _awkward_? If only we had _talked over them_!"

Aradia, however, had a concern. "I don't have much time these days," she said. Sollux looked forlorn, but nodded. "But I would like to. Give it a second shot."

"Oh, gog, she forced a two," Karkat said, and reeled with feigned nausea.

"Thanks, AA," Sollux said, and for a while the two of them did not seem to say anything at all, though Jade was not certain as she did her best to ignore them. Sollux answered her unspoken question when he laughed and said: "Well I guess we've got a lot to talk about!"

"Sorry," Aradia said. "I guess I donﾒt do much these days that's worth talking about."

Jade felt like the moment was somewhat marred by Aradia walling Sollux off from the truth about Jack, even if he did not seem to notice himself. "That's okay," he said. "Doesn't have to be a big thing, after all. Just say hi and shit, right?"

"Right," Aradia said, though as Jade watched in spite of herself, it was clear the lie had cut to her somewhat. Strangest of all, her voice seemed to be clearing from the static.

Sollux stepped away from her somewhat. "I'll just get back to work then," he said. "Lots to do. KK's throwing me some kind of pick-me-up party I've got to pretend to like."

"_HEY!_" Karkat snapped. "_YOU EXPOSE MY WEAKNESS, I'LL EXPOSE YOURS!_"

Aradia laughed, even that clearer than before, but the poor mood her lie had put her in still lingered in her eyes. "Sure," she said, and started to walk away, toward the transportalizer. But a few steps away, she stopped. Jade was not certain, but it seemed a blue, oily tear slipped down her cheek. "...You're not an asshole, Sollux," she said. "_you never were!_"

In spite of herself, Jade looked to Karkat for confirmation. "Did that sound... different, to you?"

"Different, fuck," he said, "you want to know what these two were going to be? Right here, it's the same as ever. Disgusting and schmaltzy to the very end."

"Well, I think it's cute!" Jade said. "They're on the way to somewhere they'll be really comfortable. Moirails, right? What with Feferi... and Equius, I guess, maybe?"

Karkat just grunted. There was something decidedly noncommittal about the response, but Jade could not really place it. Was it possible it was just him? As she tried to work out her mystery, there was a bustle at the transportalizer that distracted her and delayed Aradia's exit as first Equius, then Nepeta and more stepped through. To Jade's surprise, Feferi was with them, along with Rose. Jade realized she did not have much time to ask Karkat a question before there would be a whole room full of people to overhear. "...Karkat," she asked, "how long have you and Sollux been friends?"

"Speaking as the person in this lab best equipped to know," Karkat said, "it was ever since he slimed his way over my back and starting trying to eat my second-left leg."

Jade giggled at that. "...But seriously," she said.

Karkat shrugged. "I dunno," he said. "Dick's been around for a while."

Jade was not sure what to make of that. "You're a strange Troll, Karkat," she said.

"What are you talking about?" he said, as he glowered out at the crowd. "I'm a _fantastic_ Troll, is what I am." Jade did not think that answered her question either, and continued to ponder. Karkat, however, grew bored of the topic, and had no idea she was even still pondering it. He glanced over to her and, given what followed, mistook her expression. "Hey," he said, and tapped the paper on the wall so that it rustled. "...Strider tell you?"

"Yeah," Jade said, looking down. Her questions about Troll culture - or possibly just her one strange Troll friend - were immediately dashed as she remembered about Jack, and Dave, and doom. "I miss talking to him, too."

Karkat waited a long time before speaking again, as though he were as afraid to commit to saying anything. Finally, he said, simply: "Sorry."

Jade reached up to squeeze his shoulder, and only got a short bark of complaint for her trouble. And while that was nice, in its own way, it was not about to make things any better.

* * *

><p><em>This chapter was going extra-long, so I split it in two. Another update in the next few days, and then back to work on the rest of my life. You know where to find the updates. Or, if you don't, it's in the story footer just below.<em>

_If anyone is wondering about the Arthour-prototyped Centaur, the answer is yes, he's based on the Humanimal with two horses for legs. Well, maybe a bit less tall._

_As I already told the people on the forums, a lot of this chapter was just a desperate attempt to spell out the H-Universes' game mechanics before Andrew josses any of them. Which is kind of silly, because there aren't going to be near as many fight scenes for the next stretch. They were always going to come, even in the first draft - but as they weren't in the first draft, well, I have to get most of the first draft out of the way first, don't I?_

_First Drafter's Club update! This update covers the act structure, the Centaurs (oh yeah, there are Centaurs in the first draft all right), the need to front-load these game mechanics as best I can explain without spoilers, and the Sollux and Aradia relationship/storyline. Big one, and it's on the Tumblr as ever (skaianr)._


	7. Never Be Sad Again

**TT:** The question I wanted to ask concerns the conciliatory relationships.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Fair Enough.  
><strong>TT:<strong> Since we entered the game, I find that I have been in infrequent contact with arsenicCatnip.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Nepeta  
><strong>TT:<strong> Thank you.  
><strong>TT:<strong> In one of our few conversations actually directed at me, I learned a good deal about her moirail, Equius.  
><strong>GA:<strong> She Was Willing To Use His Name But Not Her Own  
><strong>TT:<strong> She insisted to me that she was "one of [my] human cougars".  
><strong>TT:<strong> Surely you aren't insisting that one of my human-cougars have names, are you?  
><strong>TT:<strong> Because I would know.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Of Course How Silly Of Me  
><strong>TT:<strong> My curiosity stems from the apparent nature of their relationship.  
><strong>TT:<strong> Prior to our most immediate discussion, I would have called the relationship one of "best friends."  
><strong>TT:<strong> But obviously my terminology has gone foul.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Well Not Entirely Foul  
><strong>GA:<strong> The Pale Quadrant Is Often The Home Of The Closest Relationships  
><strong>GA:<strong> While Trolls Have A Fixation On Our Rage There Is Still Something To Be Said For Maintaining One's Self-Control  
><strong>GA:<strong> And That Is After All The Duty Of The Moirail  
><strong>GA:<strong> But Such Entries Are Unusual At A Young Age Even Though It Is Not A Sexual Quadrant  
><strong>TT:<strong> If I am keeping proper track, your group had three at the start of this game.  
><strong>GA:<strong> The Princess Attracts Unusual Allies  
><strong>GA:<strong> And Of Course Qualifies Herself  
><strong>TT:<strong> You're hinting again at the Insurrection you mentioned earlier.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Indeed  
><strong>GA:<strong> While We Encompassed A Number Of Related Circles In Our Extreme Youth  
><strong>GA:<strong> We Came Together At First Temporarily Allied Under Cuttlefishculler  
><strong>GA:<strong> In Preparation For Her Insurrection Against Her Imperious Condescension And Her Allies Forces Fleet Army Air Force Not To Forget The Church Other Alien Forces Still Resisting Or The Giant Psychic Space Squid Playing Both Sides  
><strong>TT:<strong> Until you were interrupted by foreknowledge of this Sgrubian burp in your plans?  
><strong>GA:<strong> Yes And The Empress With A More Literal Burp  
><strong>GA:<strong> The Irony Was To A Certain Extent Palpable  
><strong>GA:<strong> That Is  
><strong>GA:<strong> In The Form Of Our Black King  
><strong>TT:<strong> Unfortunate.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Yes  
><strong>GA:<strong> But Forming A Group Of Dangerous And Gifted Persons Tends To Result In Moirails  
><strong>GA:<strong> And Explosions  
><strong>GA:<strong> With Cuttlefishculler And Caligulasaqarium As Our Nucleus We Were A Touch More Hostile Than The Average  
><strong>GA:<strong> Though Equally Bound To Hold Together In Times Of Internal Crisis  
><strong>TT:<strong> And from your hints about internal strife, I assume you're referring to...  
><strong>TT:<strong> arachnidsGrip?  
><strong>GA:<strong> How Astute Its Almost As If Youve Encountered Her In Any Way Even Briefly  
><strong>TT:<strong> I can make assumptions, but I'm still learning. For example: conciliatory breakups appear to be just as bitter as concupiscent!  
><strong>GA:<strong> I Dont Know What Youre Talking About  
><strong>TT:<strong> Yes, fascinating.  
><strong>TT:<strong> So Equius and Nepeta's relationship can be somewhat explained by this poorly explained Insurrection you're planning to explain at a more dramatic moment?  
><strong>GA:<strong> No  
><strong>GA:<strong> They Are If Anything The Most Normal Pale Relationship In Our Lives  
><strong>TT:<strong> All right then.  
><strong>TT:<strong> Nepeta repeatedly referred to her moirail as "strong."  
><strong>TT:<strong> Should I thus assume that he is "strong" enough to be dangerous, and thus necessitate a moirail?  
><strong>GA:<strong> Yes But In Practice The Distinction Goes Largely In The Reverse  
><strong>GA:<strong> On A Normal Day Equius Is Placated By His Own Recreation  
><strong>GA:<strong> Battling Robot Droids Though I Believe The Idea Was Nepetas In The First Place  
><strong>TT:<strong> So Nepeta is more dangerous than Equius?  
><strong>GA:<strong> Not With A Fist  
><strong>GA:<strong> But Imagine If You Will That A New Sgrub Players Initial Status  
><strong>GA:<strong> Level 1  
><strong>GA:<strong> Is Based On Previous Combat Training And Abilities  
><strong>TT:<strong> I can picture Strider easily enough for that.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Good  
><strong>GA:<strong> In This Regard Nepeta's Real-World Combat Training Far Outstrips Our Own  
><strong>GA:<strong> Her Physique Is Peak And Her Approach Trained And Measured If Animalistic In Approach  
><strong>GA:<strong> Those That Even Approach Her In Combat Abilities Besides Equius Gained That Previous Experience Largely Through Artificial Combat  
><strong>GA:<strong> Or With Powerful Weaponry Where Nepeta Used Only Claws To Tear Down Equal Opponents  
><strong>GA:<strong> Her Training Makes Her Game Level Representative Of A Much Stronger Troll Than Those Of Comparable Level  
><strong>GA:<strong> Though Class May Edge Others Nearer As Hers Is Support Focused And Not Combat  
><strong>TT:<strong> Remarkable. I had not struck her as any notable threat whatsoever in our conversations.  
><strong>GA:<strong> I Also Think She May Have Trouble Controlling Her Anger  
><strong>GA:<strong> Equius Had Often Counselled Against Her Participating In These Same Artificial Combats  
><strong>GA:<strong> With Some Enthusiasm  
><strong>TT:<strong> Even for him?  
><strong>GA:<strong> Youve Talked To Him?  
><strong>TT:<strong> Once.  
><strong>TT:<strong> He demanded to know my mother's annual income.  
><strong>TT:<strong> This went on for a while through various attempts, before he suddenly said something about exchange rates and disappeared.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Curious  
><strong>TT:<strong> So you suspect he is containing a particularly aggressive personality in Nepeta?  
><strong>TT:<strong> I find this hard to believe.  
><strong>TT:<strong> She's a doll.  
><strong>GA:<strong> I Dont Mean To Mar Your Impression Of Her  
><strong>GA:<strong> The Nepeta Youve Known Has Been Strengthened By Her Relationships As Much As Youve Been By Yours  
><strong>GA:<strong> And While It Wouldnt Kill Him To Learn Some Manners In How He Handles These Things  
><strong>GA:<strong> I Think The Love Of Her Moirail Makes Her Stronger Still  
><strong>TT:<strong> Which brings me back to where I began.  
><strong>TT:<strong> Is this kind of close, amicable moirallegience a common one?  
><strong>GA:<strong> Not Uncommon  
><strong>GA:<strong> Though Such A Relationship Has A Good Deal Of Pros And Cons  
><strong>TT:<strong> Such as?  
><strong>GA:<strong> Well What Would You Say Is The An Important Duty Of A Moirail When Their Partner Gets A Kismesis  
><strong>TT:<strong> I'm not sure I'm qualified to make that kind of distinction.  
><strong>TT:<strong> Is it important? I can only make guesses as to how these things interact.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Im Implying Its Important Arent I  
><strong>GA:<strong> And That Youre Supposed To Answer My Questions  
><strong>GA:<strong> What Do I Have To Do Here Rose  
><strong>TT:<strong> Use question marks?  
><strong>GA:<strong> ?  
><strong>GA:<strong> Scatter As Necessary  
><strong>TT:<strong> I will!  
><strong>GA:<strong> So Are You Going To Answer Or Not  
><strong>TT:<strong> ?  
><strong>GA:<strong> Yes Just Like That  
><strong>TT:<strong> Can I get a hint?  
><strong>GA:<strong> Generally The Quadrants Do Have A Sort Of Hands-off Approach For One Another But Thats Mostly To Prevent A Kismesis From Using Those In Other Quadrants Them As Targets  
><strong>TT:<strong> That's not allowed?  
><strong>GA:<strong> Its Impolite  
><strong>TT:<strong> Attacking people generally is.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Thats Because Youve Never Been Attacked Politely  
><strong>GA:<strong> Ill Pencil You In  
><strong>TT:<strong> Forewarned.  
><strong>TT:<strong> Nevertheless, knowing about this little dividing line, I suspect you're saying that the moirail is supposed to keep their partner from going overboard and doing something stupid, same as usual, but with a new, constant thorn in their side.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Thats One Way To Put It  
><strong>TT:<strong> And who better to talk about relationship troubles than someone you're close with?  
><strong>GA:<strong> Though I Believe In This Regard Nepeta Has Her Greatest Failing As A Moirail  
><strong>GA:<strong> As I Cannot Imagine Her Being Willing To Directly Interfere With Equius And His Kismesis  
><strong>GA:<strong> Given Her Personal Distaste For Blackrom  
><strong>GA:<strong> So Can You See A Serious Con Of Being In A Close Relationship With Your Moirail When You Also Have A Kismesis  
><strong>TT:<strong> No. Enlighten me?  
><strong>GA:<strong> Remember That Kismesis Is A Sexual Relationship  
><strong>GA:<strong> And So In Many Senses Stronger Than The Platonic  
><strong>TT:<strong> "and so"?  
><strong>GA:<strong> That Is The Unspoken Sense Of It  
><strong>TT:<strong> ?  
><strong>GA:<strong> Dont Use Those Up Im Not Giving You Any More  
><strong>GA:<strong> Also No That Was A Statement  
><strong>GA:<strong> I Guess What Im Saying Is That To Me I Presume The Sexual Relationship Would Be Stronger By Default  
><strong>GA:<strong> Its Just The Way Its Portrayed I Guess  
><strong>TT:<strong> That's strange coming from you.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Why  
><strong>TT:<strong> I suppose it doesn't match my mental picture. The long history of auspistice, past statements, gut feeling.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Perhaps You Dont Know Me Very Well Internet Stranger  
><strong>TT:<strong> Fair enough.  
><strong>TT:<strong> As for your question, the answer is "Resentment."  
><strong>TT:<strong> It would be a shame to ruin a strong relationship with your moirail when they are simply doing their duty.  
><strong>TT:<strong> Even if that duty is to cockblock you.  
><strong>TT:<strong> Or perhaps to keep you from getting off on a spaded murder, situation depending.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Great But Only Half Of The Picture  
><strong>TT:<strong> I'm afraid I'm having trouble coming up with a second situation.  
><strong>GA:<strong> I Would Hate To Interrupt You Now  
><strong>GA:<strong> Youre Proving Conciliatorily Apt  
><strong>TT:<strong> Why do I have a feeling that's not really a thing?  
><strong>GA:<strong> Low Self Esteem  
><strong>TT:<strong> ?  
><strong>GA:<strong> No That Was A Statement  
><strong>TT:<strong> Ouch.  
><strong>TT:<strong> Another hint?  
><strong>TT:<strong> Regarding our actual topic and not our aside.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Imagine Yourself As A Moirail Trying To Prevent Your Partner From Committing An As You Said Spaded Murder  
><strong>GA:<strong> How Would You Go About It  
><strong>TT:<strong> I suppose I would attempt to talk him or her down  
><strong>GA:<strong> Which Effectively Avoids The Pitfall You Are Searching For  
><strong>GA:<strong> But As Certain Moirails Have Found In The Past This Technique Runs A Certain Risk Of Failure  
><strong>GA:<strong> And I Fear Your Moirail's Kismesis Has Just Lost Permanent Use Of His Legs  
><strong>GA:<strong> His Spine Is Irreparable Its All Very Sad  
><strong>TT:<strong> Vivid!  
><strong>GA:<strong> And Now Your Moirail Is Out Of Your Control  
><strong>GA:<strong> And Will Fall Into A New Misguided Moirallegience With Some Other Troll  
><strong>GA:<strong> That Perhaps Harboured Some Other Kind Of Feeling Towards Her At The Time  
><strong>GA:<strong> And Thus Will Only Continue To Murder  
><strong>GA:<strong> Dont You See What Youve Done Rose  
><strong>TT:<strong> And now suddenly out of hand.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Sorry  
><strong>TT:<strong> Back on topic.  
><strong>TT:<strong> I suppose the next technique is direct intervention.  
><strong>TT:<strong> To get in and fight them away from their kismesis, physically or psychically.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Theyre Not Going To Be Very Happy About That  
><strong>TT:<strong> ...  
><strong>TT:<strong> I walked into that as well as any of them, didn't I?  
><strong>GA:<strong> I See Youve Grasped It  
><strong>TT:<strong> Yes, certainly.  
><strong>TT:<strong> I can see how jumping from sexual relationship (Kismesissitude) to sexual (Matespritship) could occur.  
><strong>TT:<strong> But to jump, in a single bound, from platonic to sexual seems far more...  
><strong>TT:<strong> Unstable.  
><strong>GA:<strong> I Suppose We Are All More Afraid Of The Drones Than We Are Of Discovering Negative And Sexual Feelings For Our Moirails  
><strong>TT:<strong> Certainly not all negative, if you were attracted to them.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Well Consider This Though Perhaps Its Just Me  
><strong>GA:<strong> Id Rather Discover Negative Sexual Feelings For My Moirail Than Positive  
><strong>GA:<strong> In The Midst Of An Attempt To Gut Them For Getting In My Way  
><strong>TT:<strong> Have I mentioned,  
><strong>TT:<strong> In the name of continued cultural understanding  
><strong>TT:<strong> that I find your kismesissitude utterly terrifying?  
><strong>GA:<strong> Youve Implied It  
><strong>GA:<strong> Past Statements Gut Feeling  
><strong>TT:<strong> But I mean it. It scares me. But it's fascinating. I can't help but wonder where it comes from. Is it a natural urge, or a taught one?  
><strong>GA:<strong> I Cant Say For Certain Our Business Is More With The End Of The Process Than The Beginning  
><strong>GA:<strong> Youre Now Typing Something About Striders Hypothetical Response To The Words "The End Of The Process" In An Attempt To Pass Off Responsibility For What Is Really Your Own Sex Joke  
><strong>TT:<strong> Oh, it is on now,.  
><strong>TT:<strong> Underhanded snark at five paces!  
><strong>GA:<strong> One Two Three Four Five  
><strong>GA:<strong> You Look So Much Like Your Mother She Must Be So Proud  
><strong>TT:<strong> G. A. S. P.  
><strong>TT:<strong> Your natural association with the ashen quadrant is a reflection of your lack of self-confidence to be in a relationship involves a greater amount of personal intimacy!  
><strong>GA:<strong> Through The Heart Madam  
><strong>GA:<strong> The Others Find Our Bodies The Next Day Steaming In The Sunlight But Never Did They Know The Horrors The Felled Us  
><strong>TT:<strong> Tragic. Sublime.  
><strong>TT:<strong> So tell me, enemy mine.  
><strong>TT:<strong> Have you ever felt Calignous feelings for another Troll?  
><strong>GA:<strong> Not Yet  
><strong>GA:<strong> Jade Green Blood Does Not Spill Lightly  
><strong>GA:<strong> Except Perhaps In Pointless Passiveaggressiduels In Deserts Or Whatever That Was Just There  
><strong>GA:<strong> But Ill Find Someone Worthy Of That Beautiful Excess In Time  
><strong>TT:<strong> Poetic.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Theres No Need For Sarcasm  
><strong>TT:<strong> Do you see this?  
><strong>TT:<strong> This is me sticking my tongue out at you.  
><strong>TT:<strong> It is a human gesture of respect and not at a juvenile response to being caught in the act.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Heh  
><strong>TT:<strong> No offence, but I don't imagine that once I've found my spot in your life that I  
><strong>TT:<strong> ...urm.  
><strong>TT:<strong> will be the one making a beautiful mess of your blood.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Disappointing  
><strong>TT:<strong> Oh dear.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Heh Heh  
><strong>TT:<strong> A joke?  
><strong>TT:<strong> From you?  
><strong>GA:<strong> I Can Make Jokes  
><strong>TT:<strong> I'm afraid if you were trying to coerce me to spades that I find this new sense of humour more endearing than hated.  
><strong>GA:<strong> A Shame  
><strong>TT:<strong> ...moving on...  
><strong>TT:<strong> Your turn.  
><strong>GA:<strong> Thank You

* * *

><p>As the pesterlog ran off into another topic in Rose's mind, real-world circumstances forced her to admit that she no longer liked to be underground, if she ever had before. The dislike had started somewhere during the trip from Cetus' cave back to the world above, and was not calming down as she pulled herself out of a slick gutter in the broken old lab. The Under-Laboratory had every trapping of danger one could imagine in an old ruin, along with a full orchestra of gloomy ambience set to drip, clang or rattle almost exactly when you wanted it to least. Rose also had no idea where the lighting was coming from, and that bothered her. There were no bulbs in the Underlab.<p>

It also bothered Rose that she really had no idea what these halls had once been used for - or what Sgrub was trying to pretend they had been used for. She tried to distract herself by pestering John about the night's film, where all was still going according to her plan, but that only lasted so long. Soon she could not distract herself from her surrounds. There were scummy old vats lined with rust and acid-splashed steel. There were whole tubs, like chemical pools in two rows of three, a set piece of the game's she found time and time again, but each with different stains. Old observation chambers overhung the rooms, their window panes having long since collapsed to the floor below. Last of all, Rose kept hearing noses of a less ambient sort. The small Alternian creatures that had been smuggled into the lab by certain Trolls moved through the walls like a living wave, and, at one point, Rose was certain she heard a door she had closed behind her snap shut again a minute later.

Rose did not like where her search was leading her. The further she went without finding Nepeta, the closer she got to the vault where they had first found live Underlings, not long after the Humans' arrival. As Rose passed into a room filled with large silos, dented from heavy blows and then crusted with age, the voice started. Muffled at first, barely reaching her thanks to the acoustic nightmare that was the Underlab's echoing pipe system, Rose had no idea where the voices could be coming from, and no idea what was being said. She proceeded deeper into the Underlab, a ghost on her shoulder pleading incoherencies.

After a time, Rose found her footsteps changed beneath her as she stepped onto a plastic mesh placed to let liquid flow into troughs on either side of the hallway. She was in a chemical shower, perhaps, though much of the plumbing had long since collapsed or been knocked away. Beyond, she found a huge, metal door, which she pulled open with hands stained brown from all the rust she had gathered since the morning. Beyond, she stepped into a clone lab, long buried under the newer development in Karkat's section. A proto-body still floated in an old tube, obscured by a cloud of smoky, dark yellow water mixed with visible debris.

As soon as Rose had opened the door, something beyond the door stopped moving.

Rose froze and listened carefully, scanning the room from top to bottom. There were dead computers, data banks and tubes everywhere: more than enough places to hide. Drawing the Quills of Echidna, and Rose entered slow and cautious. As she went, Rose cast a wary eye towards the observatory lounge that overlook the room, as she could now pinpoint the muffled voices coming from that direction, but her mind was not on them now. Rose found the ground nearer the large cloning tube to be slick when she took to it, a small leak perhaps, and she walked as careful as she could, hoping not to inform any pursuer that she was weak-footed and headed for a spot on the right side of the room that seemed less accessible to ambush. She kept her pesterchum window to John ready and open. And then: the sound of scuffling to the right, but also the sound of a fallen chunk of glass tinkling to the floor further to her left. Rose made a careful step back to solid ground, and put her back as close to the wall under the observation lounge. Not the best position, but it would have to do. She made a point to mind the glass, and as she did, she cast the occasional gaze to the wall behind her. No Imp was going to be able to come from that angle, but a determined Basilisk...

As she approached the wall, Rose realized she knew the voices. "...no idea... dealing with. She will never know w..."

A soft, crunching sound. Rose wheeled to her right, quills high at the ready.

"_...looks in the opposite direction, and the mighty huntress makes a deadly pounce!_"

Rose hit the ground just as she had started her about-face. A weight pinned her down safely away from the glass, though with her face inches from a brackish chemical bath. A rain of slaps from an overlarge overcoat lashed across Rose's back before the weight shifted and her captor began to gnaw on her shoulder, teeth sheathed behind her lips.

"N-" Rose swatted at her. "Nepeta!"

"But her prey has survived the initial impact and is fighting back!" Nepeta decided this warranted another jacket flogging.

"Argh!" Rose had no choice but to raise her hand to defend herself when all at once Nepeta stopped and scuttled off across the floor towards the centre of the room on all fours. Rose rolled slightly to have a better look at her, and saw her squatting on tiptoes, one hand down for balance alongside the tip of her tail and the other held frozen in the air as she looked about the room. Her eyes slid slowly from the left and then toward the right, and then back, even slower again. At last, she perked up, shook back her sleeves and extended her weapon-claws before bolting away at top speed. Her paws hit the ground in total silence while she shouted "_the graceful beast races off in search of easier purrey!_" at the top of her lungs, as if to let Rose know where she was going.

Rose, more than a little dumbfounded, pushed up with one hand in hopes of righting herself but fell back to the ground with a wince as a shot of pain rain down the arm. Checking, she found that a shard of dirty glass had embedded itself in her lower arm. Rose gritted her teeth and pulled out the shard before moving carefully to drier ground, where she fumbled through her sylladex to find the branch that had held her stash of weaker healing candy. She popped one and felt the wound close on her shoulder, but jumped again when a rattling sound started from just to her side. She looked down and saw a lumpy Alternian hard candy lying not far from her.

"You should take an antidote just in case," echoed a voice from above. She looked up to the observation windows. "It would be foolish to let it get infected."

"Not really sanitary on the ground like that," she noted.

"Not truly. It may be covered in any number of dangerous germs but it will also kill them in your bloodstream."

_Well,_ thought Rose, _if that isn't a mash of Wonderland nonsense._ All the same, she picked up the gnarly lozenge and wiped it on a clean patch of sleeve before sticking it reluctantly in her mouth. It tasted worse than she had expected, and she tended to like Alternian candy. Looking up, Rose caught sight of a pair of glinting, broken shades that were all she could see of her Cheshire cat.

It took her a while to make her way to Equius, seeing as how he had moved on to continue his close watch on Nepeta. It helped that she was soon able to hear the voices again, one of which she recognized as his. As for his partner, she could not guess, at least not at first.

"...you what I think," she said, "I think you're living on a little island in your little head with Nepeta, Vriska, Gamzee and Aradia, and you think that's going to work, don't you? Why? You don't even _like_ two of them."

"You are the last person who would know-" Equius started.

"I'm not even sure you like _her_!" said the other. "You two were screaming at each other last night. What was that about, was it what I think it was? What did Aradia say? Something about a chip you installed? Is she even attracted to you, or is that just something you programmed her to do?" Equius tried to speak up at this, but his partner began talking fast to overcome him. "Because I'm not going to stand for that! I don't think the rest of us will either! She's a person, Equius! Nepeta-"

"That's a lie!" Equius finally got out about the programming, and he smashed something nearby with what was probably an absent gesture (Rose had seen Equius smash things intentionally: it was louder).

His partner ignored him entirely picked up where she had left off. "Nepeta looked like she was going to break down in tears at the both of you! _For_ the both of you. You have a sweet little moirail and you don't so much as look to her for advice. She told me 'thank you' this morning just because I told you both to shut up and get out!"

"Don't you dare insinuate that my petty fights with the rustblood supersede my concern for Nepeta! And the details of that exchange are none of your business!" Equius snapped. "As for the details, I advise you forget them, as Miss Megido and I have made our peace on the matter. It would be the only favour your kind have done any of us since this began."

"My 'kind'?" she balked. "What, is Eridan responsible for us being trapped here? Did I miss that part? Or did he just knock over a glass of milk in front of you. Because I wanna know if you're stupid or just irritable."

"My problem is with you!" he snapped.

"I'm not trying to hurt you, Equius! I'm trying to talk to you and make things _right_."

"Right? Make them right? Is that what you call your trying to sneak into my sector via the maintenance tunnels?"

"I'm looking for the pumps!" Feferi shouted. "I told you I'm looking for the pumps! I asked you to help me with a map so _I'd be done!_" She let out an incoherent scream of frustration just as Rose pulled open the door. "...You used to be helpful," she told Equius before she noticed the door had opened. "What happened to you?"

"_You used to be useful._"

Rose had found them both in another observatory, connected via a door to Equius' own Office section. Equius she found hunched over a window smashed by the imps that had once lived there, looking down over a room filled with steam boilers that _click_ed loudly every twelve seconds, but seemed otherwise completely empty. Feferi stormed about the room at random, or at least had been doing so before she caught sight of the new arrival.

Equius bowed his head to Rose, unperturbed by the argument. "Ms. Lalonde."

"Hi Rose," Feferi said, still seething in anger, but at least polite.

"I've been looking for you," Rose said to Equius by way of greeting. A bit of a bluff, but close enough, and Rose figured it best not to be involved in the fight, even by so much as allowing it to continue. "Karkat said Nepeta was going without a computer and I wasn't sure if you were with her or if she was going to have you play along."

"She has, in the past," Equius said. "Though not this time. Does this have something to do with our lowblood leader requesting another set of silly vanity repairs or have Nitram's legs failed again? Either way, he should feel ashamed for sending someone of our calibre down to play messenger."

Rose was never really sure how to respond to Equius once they had first met in person and always phrased her words very carefully. She was well aware how his determination to set the four humans on the hemospectrum had led to his conclusion that income created class divisions on earth more than any other factor. Her mother's income had landed Rose somewhere near the Blue bloods; similarly, Equius had decided Dave was an Orange or Yellow, far below his contempt, and John a Yellow or Green (the system seemed to lack a certain precision). But that was just a taste: Terezi had whispered something to Dave a few weeks prior regarding the final stages of Equius' research. Apparently, once he had computed just how much it would take for one to buy their own private island and ship research components, heavy firearms and radioactive food processing units to it, he had immediately left the room to take a cold shower.

"...Actually, he's having dinner made special," she explained. "Making an evening of it. John's also putting together a movie," Rose said. "Knowing the film, Nepeta would probably enjoy it. You might, Feferi, but I can't say for sure."

"Maybe, Rose," Feferi said, clearly not interested enough to break her train of thought.

"Hmph," Equius said, returning to his overlook. "Then I would most likely not."

Rose joined him at an adjoining window, where the pane had fallen out entirely, and looked about in hopes of finding Nepeta. "What's she hunting?"

"Ratlings," he replied. "Scurrybeasts of unusual size: small, that is. The average scurrybeast weighs in at a hundred fifty pounds."

Rose took this in with some concern, not knowing if there were any proper scurrybeasts among the other animals living the lab's basement. The ratlings hardly bothered her: she had seen them before. They were a sort of white-furred rat with a tail covered in microscopic blades. They often snuck into the lab to steal food, every few days or so. As Rose understood it, they had been teleported in with the surrounds of several of the Troll's hives, along with an assortment of other creatures that had palled along, largely in what had been called "Feferi's zoo." Something of the more fertile creatures had bred during the Trolls' month in the game, and had followed them into the lab.

"Where-" Rose started.

Equius pointed, and following his finger, Rose saw a ratling trying to sneak around one of the steam boilers. It ran along the multi-branched causeway that made up the "floor" of a room that truly ended storeys deep into the underground, and stopped near a cloud of leaking steam coming from one of the boilers. The boiler squealed and hissed before cutting off in its cycle, and as the steam began to clear, Rose caught a glint of steel break through its haze.

"_...lowered close to the ground, knowing its purrey couldn't see or smell her..._"

Nepeta barrelled forward, the hanging metal of the causeway swaying this way and that with an awful din as she banged into support beams. The ratling raced likewise for cover, and the whole room below echoed in a chaotic scramble of claws on metal. They went first this way, then another, the rat clearly lost and Nepeta hot on its tail. Rose lost them too in the obscuring cover of the boilers and steam, but soon they charged back from around a corner, the gap between them all but closed, and bound for a dead end facing a bare wall. The ratling froze as it reached the end of its escape route, and could only turn back and stare in horror as death closed in on it, gleefully narrating: "_and then with a final strike the huntress closes in!_" Nepeta struck the ratling, snapping it into her paws, and momentum carried her and the causeway smack into the wall, sending a gong ring about the room as the causeway rattled and shook.

Rose look up and saw that Equius had already started his descent down to meet her. She picked up the pace to join him, Feferi slowly bringing up the rear. They met up with Nepeta in the hallway, where she sauntered out of the causeway on her knuckles, her victim clutched neatly in her teeth. Its blood-stained coat dripped out over her lower lip and onto the ground; proud and graceful, Nepeta deposited the ratling at Equius' feet.

"_Nepeta,_" he ordered, "_cease this 100dicrus gift-giving e%ercise at once._"

Nepeta turned her nose up at him, retrieved the ratling and deposited it at Rose's feet instead. She could not help but look down at it. Its hind legs had been broken in the impact of the chase and a muddied yellow tear ran from its neck to its belly, its left foreleg hanging loose with nothing left to hold it fast but the skin. She had seen worse, thanks to her mother's typical response to a childhood interest in farm life, but that did not make her want to stare. Nepeta beamed up at her with a lemon smile and giant eyes.

"_You know perfectly well that no one here is interested in dead animals but you._"

"Hmph," Nepeta puffed. Feferi giggled in spite of herself as Nepeta began to pout, and she patted Nepeta's head, though Rose noted she kept her eyes off of the ratling. Finally, Nepeta gave up, picked up the ratling with both hands and started off down the hall on her feet. The others followed close behind.

"You knoooooow..." Nepeta said after a few steps, leaning into Equius until he was practically carrying her weight. "These hunts would be way more fun if a certain someone could come with me."

"Out of the question," he replied at once. "The under-laboratory is a deathtrap. It's pathetic enough that I let you run about down here."

Nepeta, taking to her feet proper, replied gracefully by sticking out her tongue at him. Rose shook her head and kept walking. There was a long way left to go to get out of the underlab, but she was not about to provoke their debate just to liven it up. At least, not if she could help it. Feferi kept quiet on her own, clutching her arms to her chest as if cold. After a few minutes' walk, Rose ventured a question.

"Why are you looking for pumps?" she asked, not wanting to touch on the other thing.

Feferi looked happy Rose had done so. "I live in the Gym," she said. "There are actually lots of pools! Big pools, little kiddie pools, hot tubs and diving boards! But most of them are filthy and the rest are still pretty gross! I guess I'm not helping, swimming in them anyway." Feferi laughed at her own expense. "_I figure if I can get t)(em clean, we can all )(ave a big pool party!_ But the pumps are one of the hundreds of things that aren't hooked up to the computers. Sollux thought they might be near his room, but Karcrab doesn't want us poking around each other's dorms at night, so it's been slow."

Rose knew she meant "us" as in "everyone" but also knew that Karkat had meant "us" as in "them, specifically." "...I don't know what they're doing. I don't care what they're doing: they're showing up tired first thing in the morning, and they think they're going to get away with it-!" Terezi had interrupted him then with a bit of an overt, personal counterproposal, probably more to make him blush than out of any seriousness. Since they had been doing far better at the time, he had almost reneged, but he turned out to have been as serious with his claim as she had probably been not, and the rule had been in effect ever since.

Not wanting to bring that up, Rose instead asked: "But how did you end up in Equius'?"

Feferi smiled and pointed off somewhere to the up and left. "Sollux place is riiiiight about there! And mine is right over there!" she said, to the right. "I know, sometimes they seem like they go on forever, but once you've been crawling through the ducts a while, it's actually all one big piece!" She thought for a moment and then snorted a laugh. "I guess me climbing in them isn't making the pools any cleaner, either!"

Equius, who had been pushing ahead after Nepeta, suddenly spoke up. "I insist you prepare that thing properly before consuming it," he ordered her.

Nepeta, her mouth full, only managed to reply "Ah'll cook id lader!" before something occurred to her and, with an energetic jolt she jumped immediately in front of Rose. "Rode!" she shouted, as though only then realizing who else was there with her and her moirail. Stopping, she held up a finger for pause as she walked backwards, and swallowed before repeating, pleading eyes looking up almost a full head's height up at her human friend: "Rose! Please tell me you aren't going to be Eridan and Vriska's auspistice!"

"Nepeta!" Equius said, shocked. "You shouldn't talk like that! Rose should feel..." He stopped, his eyes drifting in another direct. "...erm..."

He pointed at the ratling in Nepeta's hands, and she looked at it cockeyed, cupped up in such a way that Rose could not see quite what was going on. Lowering her eyes, she grasped the ratling, gloved, by its bladed tail and indignantly smacked it up against the steel wall, which rang like a toneless steel drum hit by a broken stick. Rose cut short a gasp with her hand, and Feferi fell back a half-step. Equius made no obvious reaction one way or another. Satisfied, Nepeta smiled up at them both, all plump baby-faced dimples and wide eyes, as her moirail picked up where he had left off as though nothing had happened. Nepeta broke her polite silence only to begin picking things out of her teeth with her tongue.

"As I was saying, Rose should be leaping at the chance to be of such an intimate service with one of her social equals, even if it _is_ with a seadweller. To volunteer would be a service to the community, and no doubt a rewarding experience for all. _Especially_ the seadweller."

"Reward so you can double-cross them," Feferi grumbled, and Equius glowered at her. "Well that's what you mean! Tell me the last time you did something for one of your 'social equals' and it wasn't to double-cross them? But believe it or not, I'm on your side here," she added. To Rose, she said: "I mean, I think you'd like being an auspistice if they'd stop being so... you know. That's the impression, that I get from you, is all."

"I'm not worried about _them_," Nepeta said with a roll of her eyes. "I just want Eridan to stay with Tavros!"

Rose could not help but notice how Equius' mouth seemed to hang open even wider as he began to fully absorb what had been thrown in front of him. A trickle of sweat beaded up by his "...What did you say?"

"Yeah, yeah, scandal of the century, we know, Equius!" Nepeta wagged her rat at him. "Oooo, the seadwellers are awful, but even _they_ still shouldn't be dating so far below them! Terrifying! But Rose, you can't get in their way, please! Eridan and Tavros have to get back together. I don't think Kanaya will either, but would you talk to her just to make sure? I already told Kanaya that she shouldn't, and she said 'sure, whatever,' but I wasn't sure if I got through to her? She wouldn't listen when I tried to tell her how cute they are! _rose, they're so kyoooooooooot!_ '_tavv did i evver tell you that i'm havving such a great time wwith you_' '_wELL, uH, dID I EVER TELL YOU THAT YOU'RE SO HANDSOME, eRIDAN,_'"

Nepeta gestured with her fists as though equipped with puppets. Tavros was the one with the rat hanging out from under him. "'_come here my handsome muscletroll_' '_bUT WHAT ABOUT FEFERI,_' '_forget about her my lovve is noww only for you my browwn-blooded stallion!_'" And she began to mash her fists together, making kissing noises.

Equius wiped away sweat from his face and raised a hand to object, but it was clear from his voice he was not entirely sure whether he actually believed what he was objecting to. Feferi was trying not to break down laughing, and she occasionally repeated the words "_browwn-blooded stallion_".

Equius finally found his tongue: "Nepeta, have you... been spying on the private affairs of these two... gentletrolls?"

"No!" Nepeta said, and hid her fists away from him, rat and all. Looking up at Rose, she blushed, and smiled shyly. She mouthed, "They're in my head," to provide a dearly-needed bit of clarification.

"Uh..." Rose was starting to wonder if she was really a part of this conversation. "Nepeta, I'm really not-"

"Rose, please? Please? -" Nepeta managed to endear herself to Rose just a little by managing to walk a perfectly straight backwards line as she continued to squeal. "-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeea-ea-ea-ea-zzzzzzzzzzzz-" Indeed, she probably would have kept endearing herself if she had not walked straight into the wall when they reached a junction. Jumping with a squeak, Nepeta rounded on the wall as though confused as to where it had come from.

"Nepeta," Rose tried again. "I'm not going to be their auspistice, and I've talked to Tavros. Those two are going to be just fine."

Nepeta held up her hands to her mouth and made a squeak that slipped off the top of the register. "That's good enough for me!" she said. A moment later, she realized that despite holding up both hands straight and flat, the rat still dangled from one, snagged by its microscopic blades in the fabric of her glove. She glared at it and gave it a shake, but when it did not detach she clenched her fist, forced it down into her sylladex and then ran off down the hall.

"Oh..." Rose said, "I hope her inventory isn't full of those things."

"As do I," Equius said. He was towelling himself off, and that was a visual Rose kept with her as they reached the transportalizer. Rose stepped aside as they arrived, allowing the others to go first.

When the pad reactivated a few seconds after Feferi left, Rose followed, and soon, once again as ever, Rose found that she brought to that space between worlds, into the hall of the learned infinite, the Middling Gods.

"Friends of yours?"

Rose stopped in mid-thought, and looked about. As she did, she realized a strange feeling not quite warmth but of the absence of the void's usual cold. The hall of the Learned was somehow less alone, less empty, and as she turned about, Rose discovered the Troll she had seen days prior, standing before her.

"The boy in blue, I mean; the seadweller; and the girl in green, with the tail."

Her voice came to Rose's ears in the strangest fashion, if it came to her ears at all. Though, to Rose's eyes, the woman stood just out of arm's reach, she seemed a mile away, and her mouth moved before the words were heard. Rose got the impression that, if she tried to touch the stranger, she would never reach her.

"E-excuse me," Rose said as she tried to figure out what was going on. And sure enough, there was a pause before the Troll replied by nodding her head. "I'm not sure if I'd call them that," she answered

"Why not?"

Despite the invisible distances, Rose heard the Troll crystal clear, her voice dominating over every other sound in the chamber. Rose wondered how she must have sounded in turn, and tried to supress the urge to shout to cover the distance.

The stranger was a grown Troll woman, sturdy and tall, with the build Rose had only begun to see in Vriska, and streamlined in a way Vriska was not, as the woman was a seatroll. She was older, that was clear at once, perhaps in middle age for whatever that implied at her blood. Like Feferi, she wore clothing built around a swimsuit, hers made of cloth; on top of that garment, she wore several pads of a leather decorated with or made from the scales of a white, aquatic lusus species. The leather was worn about her torso and on arms and legs, aiming for freedom of movement, with several additional bands of the stuff having secured a harpoon to her back and a net folded by her hip, with several empty leather thongs on her legs. The rest of her was grey skin and bound feet: Rose was struck by the mental image of a diver equipped for spear-fishing. As Rose examined the stranger, she realized that they were standing, such as it was, at eye level, but also that she was shorter than the woman. In the strange ways of paradox space, Rose noticing the discrepancy seemed to fix it, as if that had informed the void itself of the mistake. Gradually, Rose found herself being lowered or compressed until she and her companion stood with their feet on the same invisible ground.

The woman seemed to regard Rose's interest with a certain light humour before speaking again.

"It's not often I meet someone that can still see. Would you like to stay and talk?"

Rose could already feel the first touches of the transportalizer at the other end of the line. Soon, she would be pulled through, and her ability to focus on the few brief instants she had spent in the void would fail her. Curiosity won out. "Yes, for a little while."

The Troll woman smiled, and all at once the feeling of being drawn through the transportalizer ceased. So, too, did the bizarre sense of separation between Rose and the stranger, who now leaned somewhat to the side, almost as though she were leaning on the harpoon she left on her back. When she spoke again, the sound was far more normal. Indeed, Rose had trouble hearing her over the sound of the nearest God, which murmured to itself when inhaling and stayed silent when breathing out.

"I'm afraid I might not be the best conversationalist, my dear," the woman apologized. Her voice was refined and measured. "But it's been so long since I had someone to talk to."

"Are you trapped here, then?" Rose asked.

"Call it exile," said the woman. "Those Trolls," she asked in turn. "Do you know them, at least?"

"Yes," Rose admitted.

Though she kept cheerful, Rose noted a certain sound of worry in the woman's voice when she asked: "Do you know what year it is?"

"Actually..." Rose said, hesitant. "I don't. It's become a bit of a non-issue. In fact, it's only just occurring to me that the question is in any way peculiar."

"Seems your situation isn't all that different from mine," she said, tipping her head. "I won't ask. Why ask what I wouldn't tell myself?" She sighed. "But I'm being rude, forgive me. You look exhausted." Rose supposed she must, given the strife and Nepeta's impromptu pounce. "Please, have a seat. I'd hate to keep you up and about."

"I really shouldn't be gone too long," Rose insisted, though she was both not sure how the time would really compare in the real world, nor was she sure where to sit in the first place. The woman nodded her understanding and took up a flask to offer to her guest. "Kelp wine," she explained. Rose refused that as well: while this was partially out of knee-jerk reaction to the product itself, Rose remembered that the woman had said she had been exiled here, and found herself struck by thoughts of Persephone and Izanami-no-Mokoto, and would not likely have touched the drink nor food, no matter how curious or politely offered. After she had downed the drink, the woman seemed to recover her bearing somewhat and seemed all the taller. With their feet now at level, Rose found herself being dwarfed by the woman in a way that felt almost appropriate in the circle of Middling Gods. But she smiled at Rose and a laugh creased at the edge of her eyes. "Sorry," she said. "It can be different for everyone, but I find it dry in the air."

Rose nodded, but she continued to examine the Troll's eyes, as she remembered how they had caught her attention when they had first caught sight of this strange woman from the void. In many ways, her eyes were what Rose expected from a Troll. They were orange about the iris, but as Rose looked at the iris itself, she saw that there was only a thin corona of black there, wrapped about a bright star not of colour, as she expected of the adult Trolls, but _white_. Rose was reminded of Sollux's dead things for only a moment, with their full-white eyes, before the orange and black pushed that image from Rose's mind. This was different. This seemed almost as natural as it was unnatural, in its own way, impossible as it was clearly there. Rose scoured her knowledge of Troll biology for an explanation.

"You've been alone?" Rose asked, to deflect her interest.

The woman nodded. "And yet, not quite," she said, gesturing above, toward the gods. "And I have some different neighbours, of a sort. They're fair company from time to time. But they've been here as long as I, and as a matter of speaking, we get tired of one another."

Rose laughed in spite of herself. "I know a few like that."

"Those Trolls?" the woman repeated from before.

"Sometimes them," Rose said.

The woman's smile fell somewhat. "Do you know..." She seemed to change her mind. "How is the Empire?"

"Not well, I'm afraid," Rose said, not wanting to upset an adult Troll with news of her own species' near extinction.

Indeed, the woman did not even seem that put out by the fact she had been given, and rather said: "Well that could be anywhen." After a moment of private griping, she concluded: "Poor ancestors or poorer descendants."

Rose nodded, if only to be polite. When it was clear the topic had exhausted, as far as the woman was concerned, Rose said "My turn," out of habit with Kanaya.

"Certainly," said the woman, in surprise.

"You said you don't want to say why you're here," Rose opened. The woman nodded. "But what brought you to this void, specifically? You don't seem to mind it here, but frankly, it's not exactly the safest place I can think of." As Rose asked her question, she felt a slight tugging, ghosting again at the surface of her skin from the transportalizer in the real world. Rose brushed at it. "...With a certain brevity, if you could."

The woman looked up and around the void. "I think... I disagree," she said. "I think... this _is_ the safest place I've ever known." She then smiled down at Rose and leaned into the haft of her spear. "My turn?" Rose acquiesced. "What's your name, young one?"

"Rose," she admitted, intentionally forgetting to give her last. One never knew in a place of magic like there. "You?"

The woman set a hand on her chin. "...you know, I don't remember."

"It has been a while, then," Rose suggested, half-jokingly but not at all believing the woman. She wondered if the non-answer was a passive-aggressive response to her half-answer. But as Rose tried to ask another question of her own, hoping to gauge when the woman had left Troll society for the void, the nearest God began a rhythmic diatribe in its strange inhales. Rose only understood a part, but the Troll woman laughed to hear the rest. Rose picked out a few choice words, but among them, a repeat she did not understand.

"'Mirann'?" she asked the stranger.

"He's reminding me of an old story," she said with a smile. "I suppose your arrival interrupted our conversation, in a sense."

"...Can I call _you_ 'Mirann'?" Rose asked. "Seeing as how you have no other name." And the Troll woman looked at her with sudden warmth.

"Of course, Rose darling."

The pulling force from the real world was dramatic now, stronger than before, and soon, Rose realized she was going. She raised a hand in goodbye, and Mirann returned the gesture.

"It's been so nice, to have someone to tal-"

Rose returned to the real world, in the hub. There, for just a moment, Mirann's voice lingered in her ears, or perhaps her mind a second time. Rose took a step forward, toward the hub's spoke, and nearly slipped off her feet in a daze.

"Whoa!" came a voice, and Rose found herself caught by John. "Okay there, Rose?" he asked.

"I'm fine," she said. When she looked up, Rose saw that she had returned only moments behind the other Trolls. Seeing Feferi still waiting for Equius to clear the opposite transportalizer pad, Rose tried to smile reassuringly, and she smiled back until she had left through the spoke.

"Whoa, look at you," John said before he started to laugh, himself. "Sure you're okay?" He touched her face, worried that a smear of blood may have been a cut.

"Fine," Rose insisted, brushing him away.

"If you say so, Rose. Just remember," he said, and then, in his best soap opera voice, he added: "I am a doctor."

Rose laughed, which was tiring. "Oh good, your clown college degree came in."

"Hey, Rose, don't knock clown college," John said. "The Troll Juggalos actually knew a lot about, uh, anatomy."

"Ugh." Rose knew John probably knew what he was talking about, seeing as how he actually had been hitting the books lately. She was surprised by his interest, but either out of concern for his friends or a genuine hankering, it had become a useful hobby for the entire group. John was responsible for the batch of healing candy they all kept on them those days, and had had his nose in textbooks and ectobiology equipment since they had arrived. Rose felt he had started in hopes of finding a way to beat Jack, but she had heard of no progress since that day. A small, budding part of her was preparing a set of tasteful "doctor" jokes if he kept up the new interest, but she had a feeling he was always going to be "John" to her. Indeed, he ruined his own impression by adding, "Geeze, Rose, if you can't even trust your own midwife, who can you trust?"

"I'm _fine_," she insisted, She took his wrists and freed herself from his examination. She then realized what he had said and added: "My _what_?"

"You know," he said. "Like, when we were all babies! I helped bring us all into the world! ...I'm using the term wrong, aren't I?" Rose nodded. "Well, I mean, I suppose, with a little bit of studying, I could-"

"Just digging yourself in deeper," Rose interrupted, and he hung his head. Rose laughed. "Look, John, I'm tired, I've been fighting all day and I just chased a wild jungle cat through the great, Rusting Amazon. Just help me move it along here. Did you find..." She couldn't remember at first, and shook her head to clear it. _Something about... right!_ "...the movie?"

"Just going there now!" he said, moving toward Aradia's portal. "See you there?"

"Well, it's not for me, so to speak."

"Iiii know who it's for," he said, winking.

"Don't do that," Rose insisted. "And you're wrong, it's for Tavros."

"Huh, really?"

"Yes," Rose said, getting onto the central hub. "See you when you're ready, John," she said, and left. Rose slipped back into the void, and was almost glad not to see Mirann on the opposite side. "I've been spending entirely too much time in there," Rose commented as the void pulled her on. Soon, she was back among her allies in the main computer lab, amid the familiar sounds of conversation, and the not-too-infrequent attempts to shout over one another. Jade ruminated with Karkat in one corner, and not far from them, Sollux lingered by his computer. The rest of Rose's group lingered just off of the transportalizer pad.

As Rose took in her bearings, she noticed that Aradia was with the rest of her group, and saw her take Equius' arm and lean in close enough to speak just above a whisper. Those at the edges of the room were ignoring them, but Feferi could not help but overhear, and Nepeta, casting them a worried look at first, soon stood guard nearby as if trying to casually enforce a perimeter.

"Look, if you could just..." Aradia was saying. She sounded curt, but not in her usual, mechanical fashion. Rose could not help noticing the thin, somewhat blue-stained streak on her metal face, and how she looked caught between joy and... "...half hour... fifteen minutes, come to my room. Casual." ...And hurt. "...Please."

To Rose's surprise, Equius accepted ("Of course.") at once, though he did ask one reasonable question: "But what about the Humans?"

"My room's not near theirs, and I'll lock the door," she said. Rose was sure she'd send Dave a message as well just in case. "It's just got to be mine, Equius, your place is infested with Imps and... and cats," she said, almost joking but not quite able to get it out. "No offence."

"She wouldn't interrupt," Equius insisted, having perhaps caught the concern on Nepeta's face the moment Aradia had approached. "...But I wouldn't want to lock her out, when so many of her things are there..." It was a poor excuse when even Rose could tell that Equius simply thought it was wrong to lock Nepeta out at all, and if Aradia had looked any less upset, Rose might have felt less favourably towards her. As for Nepeta, she was trying to look smaller by the second. Unable to actually shrink, she soon gave up and started to walk away, toward Jade and Karkat. Her quiet abscond was summarily ruined when she tripped over the leg of Sollux's chair, pulling the chair down with her and slamming his arm hard into the desk.

"Ow, fuck!" Sollux shouted. "Fuck!" Rose almost could not hear him. The small silver lining on the situation was that Nepeta had fallen into a fit of giggling at her own clumsiness. That everyone looked up to see, as Sollux swore loudly at his injury and Nepeta, still on the ground, was now trying to keep from outright laughing as Sollux steamed up bright yellow, his overwrought emotions provoking her own. Finally, realizing they were the centre of attention, Nepeta got up and tried to leave, only to knock aside his keyboard and mouse with her overlong sleeves.

"Fuck it, Leijon!" Sollux sat back at his desk and began to readjust the keyboard until it was perfectly parallel to the edge of the desk. Nepeta, unable to contain her laughter any more, mustered a quick "-I'm sorry!" before covering her mouth and running away to Jade.

Equius winced all the same, but answered Aradia's original question: "I'll be there."

Aradia gently squeezed his arm and stepped away, shuffling toward the transportalizer. Rose stepped off it as she approached: in doing so she passed near Feferi, who had remained near the middle of the room.

"I don't believe him!" she said. Rose was confused, and so looked towards Sollux, wondering if Feferi was referring to him, instead.

"How do you mean?" Rose asked.

"Equius!" Feferi hissed. "I just..." Feferi gestured to where Equius and Aradia had stood, though one had gone and the other was pretending to be interested in his computer. "They were trying to publically humiliate each other last night, and now..." Feferi shook her head, fighting for words. "There are just so many mixed signals here and I've _been_ here, and... and you don't want to be here in a relationship. You don't."

"Eridan?" Rose asked, instinctively.

Feferi waved a dismissive hand, but then corrected herself to say "Well, lack of communication, yes, but not what I mean. Vacillation. And they weren't my quadrants so much as my allies, it was... it was complicated. I mean..." She glanced around the room, and then sighed when she had confirmed that the volume had dropped and she could be easily overheard. Her eyes closed in thought, as if trying to decide whether or not to continue. Feferi then pushed some of her hair behind a fin, which almost seemed to transform her somewhat, from the happy, bouncy princess to a serious one, politics and all. Somehow familiar to Rose, she seemed all the taller for doing so.

"Look," she said, her voice measured, not unlike Kanaya. "You're an observer. Seer of Light, psychiatrist. And you listen. I see it." Rose was not quite comfortable with that label, but Feferi continued. "I saw it because I _had_ to observe everyone once, and I guess I can't break the habit. I had to do it all the time, or somebody would kill me. Either because they were gunning for me, or because sometimes I couldn't even say something simple without making them so... _so_ angry, that they'd want to. I'd have to keep an eye on them, had to figure out what counted as something worth killing over for them... Look," she said, facing Rose. "what do you think just happened here, just before we got here?"

Rose took a look around. Everyone just seemed to be going about their business. Karkat, Jade and Nepeta were talking in a corner. Kanaya, who had greeted Rose with a nod earlier, was now simply attending to her business without fuss or distraction, such as from Vriska, who was having a very enthusiastic conversation with Tavros about something on his computer screen. Gathering what she knew of Aradia, Rose refocused, checking Sollux. Though Nepeta had turned back to him and was saying something new, he was straight-up ignoring her, smiling, and even humming to himself. "Did he and Aradia... I mean, they used to, or so I've heard."

Feferi nodded. "Yeah. I think they hooked up again." A smile played at the edge of her lips. "He hasn't talked about her the whole time we've been together, but look at him! I can't even do that, sometimes. She must have really been important to him."

"But..." Rose shook her head. "Why was she upset?"

"Wouldn't you be?" Feferi asked.

"Well, no," Rose replied. In the distance, Nepeta slammed her hands down on Sollux's desk for reasons unknown and walked away to harass Karkat and Jade.

"Think about it," Feferi said. "Imagine you're Aradia. Someone you like wants to be with you again, but he's tied up in flushed!"

"So you think Aradia and Sollux were flushed for one another, or at least she was?" Rose asked.

Feferi shrugged. "He never talked about it. And if they are, yeah, that's sad, and I feel like a jerk to be in their way."

"You're joking," Rose said, but Feferi did not look like she was joking, even if she did look like she was upset. "Why theirs over yours?"

"Because they have more history?" Feferi said, but she didn't seem quite so sure. "I think I got off on this wrong. I'm not saying I'm going to dive out of my own relationship, Rose, just that I feel bad. I guess we haven't been focusing on each other. He's got his things, and I've been... well, just worried that..." She took a look around the room at those present and seemed to be running the variables in her head. "I wouldn't want to be in the way of someone like that if they don't want me. Would you? Well, unless they deserve it."

Rose laughed. "Okay," she said, "I'm getting the blackrom jokes. Steady progress from Team Human."

Feferi seemed to appreciate that. "_Y-EA)(!_" she said. But then she added: "But even then, you gotta agree with the people you're in the black for." She again adjusted her hair as she watched Sollux and the others. This seemed to somehow restore some of her confidence. "So I guess... there's talking." She sighed, but then returned to the conversation, and to possibilities that probably struck her as brighter. "And maybe it'll turn out that Sollux and Aradia were pale and things will be even better, you know? Or maybe they weren't anything at all yet and it's just me! But things have changed. Ugh." Unable to keep up even her own disposition, Feferi shook her head. "I'm sorry, Rose, I'm just hijacking you here for a sounding board."

"It's all right," Rose said. "Like you said," _though I hate to admit it,_ "I'm an observer."

"I guess I do count, too," Feferi replied with a giggle. "Okay. You wanted to know why Aradia was sad. Here's another possibility. Imagine being Aradia again. You've got a guy in your life you're attracted to, Equius this time."

"I don't particularly want to picture my love life with Equius at the moment," Rose cut.

Feferi chuckled at that too. Rose made a mental note to keep up the jokes with this one. "Okay, but just like Equius, with this guy or gill, you don't know one day to the next whether you like them or want to throttle their stubborn necks! Then you get your old flame back, and you're so happy to have something normal in your life, when you realize... you've only got one free quadrant. 'If this screws up...'"

Rose knew enough from Terezi to fill in that blank. "Well, maybe Aradia's being proactive."

"How do you mean?"

"Maybe she's breaking up with Equius?"

Feferi half sighed, half groaned. "Not those two. They're too stubborn to solve their own problems." She shook her head. "That wasn't fair. _I'm such a beac)( tonig)(t, Rose,_" she said, slowly regaining her usual countenance. "Ah... some days, donﾒt you just wish it would all give you a break? Just... curl up with your matesprit and ignore everybody else swimming about, smashing things up. Just you and them and nobody else in the whole world? Be just a little shellfish for one day? Is that wrong?" She smiled toward Sollux, her hands again holding her own arms.

"I wouldn't really know, not having a matesprit," Rose pointed out. "I think you're fishing at something."

"No, I just mean, you can imagine it, right? Well... it's nice." She glanced over towards Kanaya. "You're actually really lucky you've got each other the way you do right now," she said. "Better this than vacillating, for starters," she said with a quick laugh to their previous conversation, "but relationships can be... heavy. Sometimes, no matter how good the rest of it is, the extra stress... Oh, no, don't be worried!" she hurried to add. Rose's eyes had been drawn toward Kanaya as soon as Feferi had started hinting, hesitation even plaguing her response. "I mean..." Feferi seemed flustered to amend her own statement. "Maybe it's not always. But I think once you two get into one, it's going to fit together so _perfectly_."

Rose was not sure how much of Feferi's reassurance had been out of obligation rather than actual assessment. Her and Kanaya's month and a half-old promise to pick a quadrant seemed almost forgotten some days, and she was not sure how she felt to have it brought back up.

"Sorry, Rose," Feferi said. "I didn't mean to put it badly, really."

"It's all right," Rose said. "If you're so concerned about stress, don't worry about me. I'll bounce back."

"Good," Feferi said with a laugh, though her face fell over time. "I never wanted to be a schemer," she said. "...Well, whatever you want to call it, that we're doing here. It just crops up some days. Gl'bgolyb told me that I didn't have to be Condesce, one day, and I guess that was sad in its own way, but it meant I was done! And she said I was supposed to be a Witch, and I figured I'd make up for all the good work I was going to do as Empress as a Witch! ...But I don't think I ever really became one," she finished. Distant, she stared at her own feet, and shifted her weight. But before Rose could speak up, she added one more word: "..._C)(-EAT-ER_"

"What?"

Feferi raised a hand toward Rose and shook her head, and then immediately walked away before Rose could stop her. As she went, she neared Sollux, and Rose watched as she put on a smile to match his own, and said hello.

"Look at you!" she said, cupping his blushing face. "You're like a bright, healthy coral!"

Sollux smiled. "Yeah, I guess."

"Soooo..." Feferi said, resting her arms on his shoulders as she stood. "What haaaappened?"

"Is it that obvious?" he asked.

"Yes," cut Karkat, ignoring the conversation he was taking part in to get in the jab.

Sollux casually flipped him off, not breaking eye contact with his matesprit, though he curled his finger after a moment and Rose did not think it was a coincidence when one of Jade's long sheets of paper suddenly lost its sticky tack and draped over Karkat's head. "It's not much," Sollux said. "AA and I talked and... well, we're gonna start over, you know? After all that's happened."

Feferi's gasp almost seemed legitimate. "That's so great!" she said, and hugged him. "This is _so_ great! You've got your old friend back, and you're going to have a moirail again-"

"Well I donﾒt know about _that_," Sollux said, somewhat bashfully. "I mean, we're just testing the waters again, is all."

"Of course, of course," Feferi chirped. And as his smile seemed to brighten with her encouragement, Rose noticed a strange change in Feferi's own: it faded, not to sadness, but from a stage smile to a genuine, as she saw how much this meant to him. "...I'm just so happy for both of you! Aradia really needs someone there for her, I think, who's... constant." Rose could not help but notice how she seemed to have forgotten that Sollux was not always that constant himself. "So!" Feferi said, as a change of subject. "Tell me about her."

"You know about her!"

"_But I wanna know MOR-E!_" She clapped Sollux on the shoulders. "Only going to be one step apart in quadrants!"

Sollux started to talk and from there, Rose slipped away, across the room and slowly, naturally, towards Kanaya, where it was quiet. She flopped down onto the desk beside her friend.

"...Nepeta didn't make you chase her, did she?" Kanaya asked after a pause. "I can only guess that's where you've been."

"No, though she did jump me," Rose said. Rose filled Kanaya in in brief, from the Strife to meeting up with Nepeta, leaving Feferi and Equius out of the picture.

"Bleeding," Kanaya said. When Rose looked up, she pointed just under her left ear. Rose reached up to the same and found an extended red smear, though the point of origin had long-since cleared.

"...Who even knows?" Rose said with a sigh.

Kanaya clicked her tongue. "This plan of Karkat and John's is so half-baked. _If He Would Just Assign You A Regular Bodyguard You Would Be In Less Danger_"

"Are you volunteering?" Rose asked.

But Kanaya was actually so emotional, she hardly seemed to hear. "_Your Capabilities Are The Games Fault I Dont See Why He Insists On Taking It Out On You_" As she spoke, Kanaya reached her hand down towards her mouse, perhaps aiming to return to work, only to find a small chastity key lying against the side. She glanced at its handle, nodded, and used it to retrieve a small bundle of packaged wet napkins from her sylladex that looked like they had been taken from a Prospitian restaurant.

"Don't ask," Kanaya said, as she stood up to clean Rose's neck.

Rose caught her hand just as Kanaya reached her with the napkin. "Don't mother me, please," she said. Rose's mind was now elsewhere on the subject of Kanaya, and mothering cut at it the wrong way, especially given her personal experience with mothering. Kanaya at first refused to release her hold, but Rose would show her just how stubborn she could be if Kanaya insisted on otherwise. Finally, Kanaya relented, and Rose set to work cleaning her own neck. As she worked, Kanaya kept standing, perhaps not willing to give up that ground as well.

"...What have you been up to?" Rose asked, to distract from the awkward pause.

"Karkat's had me checking the nearest meteor sensors for damage, for some reason. Very adamant," she said. "I tried to hold a discussion with him about the bucket issue, re- the Drones and all, but just panicked a bit and then said had to go on patrol, which was at least half true. Said he would get back to me around now, but he's off talking to Jade, and I hear something about a party?" She pointed toward Eridan, browsing the internet on his own. "Do you know why?"

Rose nodded. "Sollux almost dropped on us after the fight."

Kanaya clicked her tongue again. "Karkat," she tisked again. "Sometimes I just don't know." Kanaya shook her head. "I can only hope this evening's entertainment is up to par, or I may just have to start researching buckets on my own."

Rose smirked. "Oh, I think you'll like the film," she said. "I'd hate to miss your reaction, honestly. Of course, I'd hate to miss your reaction to the buckets either, so I suppose you have a tail for the night one way or the other."

Kanaya scoffed. "'_HEY, KANAYA,_'" she mimicked, slightly off-tone. "'_SO LET'S TALK ABOUT THIS BUCKET SITUATION BEFORE ANYONE ELSE REALIZES WE'RE SAYING THE WORDS "BUCKET SITUATION" AND THIS TURNS INTO A CLUSTERFUCK OF EPIC PROPORTIONS._' '_How About We Hold Off On That,_'" Kanaya replied, as herself, "'_And Instead Discuss How Poorly Youve Been Treating Rose-_'"

Kanaya had to clear her throat, and then continued: "And he interrupts, '_WAIT, WHAT THE HELL KIND OF AMBUSH INSUBORDINATION IS THIS?_'

"And I say '_As It Happens I Just Told Her How I Felt About Your Behaviour But As A Response She Asks Me To Go Watch Porn With Her_' '_SHE WHAT._' '_Exactly. And So I Was Wondering... The Filthy Kind Or The Really Filthy Kind? Your Thoughts_'"

"You wouldn't know which was which," Rose taunted between laughter.

"Neither would you!" Kanaya confronted. "So we're just going to have to wait for my modus to give me the key for the stack of _Barely Eight and a Third_ magazines I found along the way, and that will tell us what's what."

Eridan, who had been passing, raised an eyebrow high as he carried on at doubled pace. The girls both took to staring him down, straight-faced as they could hold, until he fled from them. The laughter got worse when Vriska looked up at him, asked what was going on, and he replied, "_i dunno, it turns out they're fuckin crazy pervverts is wwhat's goin on_"

Rose fell back onto the desk as she laughed, and Kanaya had to lean her weight on Rose's shoulder to stay up herself. After a moment, they both locked eyes, as if daring the other to laugh first. And it was during this staring contest that Rose finally slipped out of the drama of the past few conversations, and remembered her conversation with Mirann. She looked close at Kanaya's eyes, past the orange and deep into the iris, but saw no trace there of Kanaya's rare, jade green.

"Kanaya?" she said.

"...Yes?" Kanaya asked. She stepped closer, or had earlier, Rose was not sure which. It was clear from her expression that she was confused as to what Rose was doing.

"Trolls have their blood colour in their eyes when they've grown up, donﾒt they?" Rose asked. She half reached up toward Kanaya, but then touched her own eye. "Is that part of the moult?"

Kanaya paused, and then took her hand from Rose's shoulder and held it to her eye. "The last moult," she said. "Why?"

Rose had a brief moment of epiphany. "Karkat did say these three were in their 'penultimate' moult, didn't he? I don't really know what to think of two."

Kanaya nodded, smiled nervously and stepped back to her chair. "Why do you ask?"

While Rose had initially wanted to talk to Kanaya about her encounter in the World Between, the thought of actually saying it suddenly brought the whole plain to a stop in her throat. Explaining Mirann meant explaining the Middling Gods, and that would be trouble. "I just..." Rose said the first thing that came to mind: honesty. "I realized it will look good on you."

Kanaya seemed surprised at first, but then put on a modest smile. "You're sweet," she said.

Kanaya's reaction to the past few seconds caught up to Rose in those final moments. She suddenly realized just how close she and Kanaya had been standing, touching, staring, and all the thoughts that might have passed through her mind if she had not been distracted by her big mysteries caught up to Rose all at once. Rose began kicking herself, but was not really sure for which reason best of all. She then noticed that Kanaya, too, seemed distracted. _Oh shit, oh shit,_ Rose started to think. _She's thinking about it too. Did what I think just happen, happen? Is that... good?_ Rose was not sure if that was good thing. What would have been "good," anyways? Trying not to show any outward sign of panic, Rose began to internally address the weighty and substantial subject that was goodness. Gooditude. All but beginning to pace, she tried to decide whether or not the preceding development weighted more favourably or unfavourably toward the future of a relationship she had not actually considered going further at this precise-_Did one of us just try to kiss the other or not?_ she demanded of her memory. And the perhaps more despairing and pathetic question: _...Which one of us was it?_

Kanaya did not give her much time for self-flagellation. She gathered up her sketch pad, which was open to a new, half-complete map of the spawning caverns. "I know you plan on 'tailing' me today, but uh... this movie tonight. This is actually part of your plan with Tavros, isn't it? To, well..." Rose nodded. "Well, in that case..."

Kanaya pointed toward Tavros with the back of her pencil, and Rose realized that Vriska had left him alone, disappearing before Rose's eyes in the transportalizer. Rose gathered her thoughts as fast as she could. "You're a godsend," she whispered to Kanaya, who smiled as she picked up work on a sketch. _After all,_ Rose thought, turning to Tavros. _Priorities. Priorities and distractions._ She took a deep breath, as much for one problem as the other, and was off in a flash. Tavros took her in after a startled jump, and they were soon conspiring straight until dinner was prepared - Rose never even noticed as Kanaya put aside her sketch pad and headed toward the far corner.

* * *

><p>Jade, and much to his consternation, Karkat, got front row seats to Nepeta's attempt to simply walk past Sollux. She was still giggling and shaking her head when she walked up to the both of them, and grinned up at them, bouncing on her heels.<p>

"What's up?" she asked them. She had seen the diagrams already and had accepted that Jade would not tell her what they were for, but took a moment to skim the new drawings on them all the same, just on an artist's principle.

"Oh, nothing," Jade said, nonchalantly. "You're just screwing up a tender moment."

"I'm what?" Nepeta laughed, and then looked around to see what she was missing. Seeing nothing at first, she started, and then peered Karkat and Jade with wide-eyed suspicion. Slowly, like a cat going for a toy, she raised a questioning finger toward them. Karkat grabbed it and turned it toward Sollux.

"...Ohmigog, Aradia!" Nepeta shouted, having put together the pieces. "Sollux, I'm _so, sorry._"

"It's fine," he grunted, obviously hoping she'd go away. Jade could not help but notice the lingering smile on his face, though it blew straight by Nepeta.

"No, really!" she insisted.

Nepeta continued to babble as Karkat whispered sidelong to Jade: "That was mean."

"No, it was funny," she replied with a giggle. "This is funnier, though," she added, as Nepeta, slumped to her knees to be at eye-level, went even lower out of submission and made little whimpering sounds between begs for forgiveness.

"I would never, efur stand between you two, Sollux, I just want you to be happy and you've just gotta talk-"

"We did!"

"-And I won't get anywhere near you, you can have all the space you want-"

"Good! Leave!"

"You're right," Karkat said in a normal speaking voice, and he turned up the sarcasm as he eyed the ceiling: "This is hilarious. I can't believe you're messing with them like this. That's so hot."

Nepeta slammed both hands down onto the desk and glared over her shoulder. Sollux and Jade both took their own turn to laugh at her rage. "Youuuuuu," Nepeta said to Karkat and Jade. "You're nowhere near each other on the shipping wall and _you both know it!_" She swept her hands overzealously back and forth between them both. Turning back to Sollux, who was still laughing, Nepeta crashed herself down to the desk, head on her hand, and threw him an impromptu roleplay of a street tough: "They're tryin' to fuck with me!" she said, before turning up her nose and going to leave.

"Nep!" Jade called, and she stood on her tail to prevent her from leaving.

Nepeta turned back and collected it. "Fiii~ine," she granted, but then added: "Besides, I have to tell you about my hunt!" She then plunged into a description of the deep jungle.

Feferi arrived to talk to Sollux as Nepeta babbled, and with two conversations going on around him about things he didn't care about, Jade knew Karkat would soon try to seize back control of the conversation, and she braced herself when he finally picked a question. "Wait a second, why the hell aren't I on your shipping wall?" He lowered his eyes at both girls.

"I asked her not to ship me with anyone red for serious," Jade said matter-of-factly. "I'm not interested right now."

"_the official shipping wall commends itself on its adherence to established fact,_" Nepeta said officiously. She then leaned over to Karkat and, behind her hand, whispered, "On the other walls she's with Gamzee and Tavros. Don't tell anyone."

"Gamzee?" Jade shouted, surprised.

"He thinks you're cute!" Nepeta insisted. "_i ran a survey_" She then coughed and added, "Only Gamzee answered."

"Oh, gog," Karkat muttered.

"Oh, gog..." Jade echoed, quite unintentionally. She then stopped and touched a hand to her lips. "Fuck, now I'm saying it. We should have stopped all of you a long time ago!"

Karkat lowered his eyes. "Stopped us from saying what?" He waved a hand in his air to dismiss the subject and then said. "Look, Gamzee also thought Troll Martha Stewart was both cute and a valid option, so I think the evidence we have here says something about his taste."

Jade, who had been touching up some of her equations, turned around and threw a pencil at Karkat. "And why aren't I on your wall, huh?"

"Because I asked her to take off crazy bitches that throw fucking pens at me," Karkat said, retrieving the pencil, throwing it back, and denying he had made a mistake.

Nepeta cleared her throat again. "As you well know, Jade, Karkat is suffering from a deep and personal hurt," she said professionally. "_he's not the type to just go off to the next purretty face he s33s!_" Lacking the true professional decorum she playacted, Nepeta began to sway on her stationary feet. "_any other eligible bachelors or bachelorettes will just have to wait for all those bad f33lings to calm down from their boil and make the flushed quadrant nice and ready to swim in again!_" She began to tip closer and closer towards Karkat.

"Yeeeeah..." Karkat said, and he carefully pushed swaying Nepeta away from him with one finger. "You just leeeaaaan the other way when you do your thing there, okay?"

Nepeta, who Jade recognized was just teasing Karkat about her crush for fun (if only the once), leaned over-far and toward Sollux and Feferi. "You guys, help!" she cried. "He's shipping me your way!"

Feferi laughed and held up a hand to push Nepeta back. Sollux did not even look up. "Fuck off," he added.

"Bluh!" Nepeta balked, and then remembered herself and changed it to "Hsss!" She then then "leaned" toward Jade instead, in what was little more than one of her usual glomps. It was as Jade started to pat Nepeta on the back to acknowledge the low, rumbling sound she was making that Kanaya arrived.

"_Karkat I Need To Talk To Someone_" she said, obviously flustered.

"In a minute," he said. "I need some information now that people have stopped fucking eavesdropping." Jade suddenly understood why he had been waiting around with such uncharacteristic patience: the room seemed to have returned to its own business after latching on to the new arrivals from the Underlab. No one seemed to so much as notice his comment, save for Sollux and Feferi. "I can't so much as get a fucking meal if the Harley/Leijon sister act don't break up and tell me why we're all..." Karkat turned to Sollux and Feferi, to address them personally: "_dooooooomed!_" he said, perfectly. "_am ii doiing that riight?_"

"Asshole," Sollux muttered.

"As far as I can tell" Karkat said, ignoring them in the end, "what with the lead engineer telling me about backup plans, is that these are five zillion pages explaining how to shine a big flashing light that spells out 'KILL US PLEASE, WE ARE RIGHT HERE'. Just let me confirm and we'll talk."

Kanaya sighed, crossed her arms, and actually turned toward the nearest desk to wait. She started to bite down on her lower lip.

Karkat watched her with astonishment. "Whoa, okay, what? Did your ear for sarcasm just rot off? Since when has Nepeta been part of my strategic council, honestly, you'd think this would be obvious. You _can_ talk!"

Nepeta looked up from Jade's shoulder, her horn rubbing up against Jade's cheek. "Did something happen with Rose?"

_That _would _be your guess,_ Jade thought, but all of a sudden Kanaya went shifty-eyed, taking in the perimeter of Jade's makeshift office and those around it, and herded Jade, Karkat and Nepeta further in. "This does not leave this... room."

"Hi guys!" The entire group turned to see John, who had just arrived holding a DVD case. When he saw Kanaya, he immediately stashed the case in his sylladex, and as a result it took him a while to tell that he was not wanted. "...what's going on?"

"I dunno, Egbert," Karkat said. "Drag this out and we'll see."

"...No," Kanaya decided, and she led John in. "I'd appreciate the insight as it is."

"Uh oh," John said. "This is about Rose, isn't it? Yeah, okay, we need all the insight we can get. Jade: get the Rose translator."

"Right!" she said, grinning to John, seeing how he was trying to lighten the mood. She called up her lunchmuffs. "This is the biggest thesaurus I have!" she said, projecting a holographic book to the floor, but having no real intent to use it. After all, there was a time for silliness and a time for seriousness, and after a little levity...

The Trolls seemed to agree. Nepeta initially played along with Jade by sitting at her feet and batting at the lunchmuff's holograms, but as Kanaya lingered trying to muster the nerve to speak, Nepeta slowly came to sit still, then straight, and then began to lean towards Karkat as though about to speak to him herself.

Karkat had held his lazy slump during the whole affair, but acknowledged Nepeta's approach, and so spoke: "Well, come on," he said to Kanaya. "Out with it."

She swallowed. "...Well, as you all know-"

"_Exactly_, Karkat said. "So move on."

"Wait, hold it," John said. He then called out: "Rose!" just above speaking volume. They all looked, but their friend did not look up from her animated talk with Tavros. "Okay, we're good," he said. "I dunno, sometimes I think she hears things."

Kanaya lowered her eyes somewhat. "...We aren't settling into a quadrant and it's driving me crazy."

The entire group had their own reactions, all supportive and measured, but Jade could not make any out but her own as Karkat growled: "Oh, god dammit, you can't _pick_ one, you mean!" The others were overwhelmed by him as well and stopped what they were saying. "Look, I get that you, at least, are all crammed to the metaphorical aquatic breathing slits with the fuzzy feelings, but look at you! You got so caught up in your little vampire melodrama that you forgot to actually decide if you were going to fucking bite her or not, didn't you?"

"That's not fair, Karkat," John said. "I mean, if Rose and Kanaya are going to do a quadrant... well, she's definitely going to 'bite' her. It's just two different kinds of bite! Or maybe a different place to bite?" John seemed to ponder this for a moment. "Look, my point is-"

"The point is you don't understand this issue half as well as you think you do," Karkat said. He then opened his mouth, made a sound as though pained, and instead said: "...okay, fine. Kanaya, would you like to hear the Peanut Gallery's opinion before their heads explode all over the fucking blueprints? Or should we just cut to the one person who has an informed opinion here?"

Jade had to admit that she was eager to speak, not that she had anything more than the generic to say. Nevertheless, Kanaya took one look at the other three, all eager and ready to go, and told Karkat, "...yes, maybe you should go instead."

"Good," he said, "Now that we've accomplished a proper speaking order, let's get one last piece of info out. Harley, Egbert. Has Rose said anything to you that will make this a lot easier?"

"I dunno," John said, honestly. "Rose is really cagey sometimes. She could be married for years one day and I wouldn't really expect to know about it until the fourth anniversary."

Jade nodded. "Then she'd probably list out all the hints she had dropped."

Kanaya squirmed at the sound of the word "married", and Karkat clapped her on the shoulder. "Hey, customs issues later, advice now. Back to the topic of hand and my gold-pressed diamond-class advice, as your leader and your friend. You listening? Look me in the eye and say you're listening, before I turn you back to the savage, blunt claws of the unwashed and uninformed." Kanaya nodded, and so Karkat supplied: "_KISS! HER!_"

And that, it seemed, was all that Karkat had to supply. Before Kanaya's surprise could actually sink in, he had pointed to Jade and said "_NEXT!_"

Kanaya barred her teeth at him. "Karkat, that is not _advice!_"

"That is world-shaping advice and I'll prove it by contrast! Harley!"

"Thanks, Karkat," Jade said. "Really. Kanaya, I know this is probably really hard for you to pick, but really, you and Rose have been talking every single day about everything ever since you got here! I think you'd be happy in either quadrant, you just have to relax and not stress it, is all!"

Kanaya blinked. "...you're right," she said. "That is awful advice."

"Thank you," Karkat said.

"Well if we've got to cut right to it," John said, trying to look sympathetic for Jade, "I think you two would be better as moirails!"

"Oh, for fuck's sake!"

"Karkat!" Jade protested.

Karkat backhanded John on the arm as if hoping to pass on the punishment to Jade. "Oh, no, I'm sorry, then! Harley wants me off your case! So how about, instead of shoving your rank, dripping, moron idea back up where we all know it came from, we'll put it on display! Open-air! So all can smell its glory and think of you. Hell, why let it stink on its own? Let's get some more droppings to flank it. Leijon! I want a ten-page essay on Rose-spades-Kanaya on my desk by an hour ago." Nepeta glared at him and made uncomfortable cat noises. "Harley, you eat your limp-wristed 'everyone's happy' scenario before you leave the table or you're not getting any dessert, and yes: this is still a shit analogy. Then go convince Eridan to hang out with Rose until she screams for Little Miss Auspistice and we'll have covered all three of the worst possible quadrant suggestions."

Even Kanaya looked offended at that, but Jade came to realize that someone did not seem to care about Karkat's opinion in the slightest: John. Jade almost felt bad for Karkat when he noticed as well. "Wow, you're just gonna keep going, aren't you Karkat?" John asked. "Or are you done? I can talk again? 'Cause you can finish your shipping wall if you want, I'm sure we're all glad to hear it! No? Awesome."

Karkat fumed, which prompted Nepeta to laugh and say: "This is great... can I talk about _my_ shipping wall right now, because I think I ju-?" Jade, seeing where she was headed, plucked Nepeta's hat off of her head and began to scratch her. Nepeta did not realize she had been thoroughly distracted until it was too late, and blew Jade a raspberry for spoiling her fun. She didn't much complain about the scratching.

"The way I see it, you guys," John said, "is that Kanaya was the only one looking after Rose when she was grimdark until the rest of us found out what was going on _way_ too late. She even saw what I didn't, and I was right there!" While his speech started out enthusiastic, as he carried on to the next point, John began trailing off. "And then she went down after Cetus and... well I didn't even go with her then, but I know you two talked a bit, Kanaya! I know I was busy looking for the thing, but..." John absently held on to his right arm. "Thanks, I guess is what I'm saying. You're good for one another."

"John, don't follow up the melodrama by pouring on more melodrama," Karkat said.

"That's not what that means, Fuckass," Jade muttered.

As ever, Karkat took to anger at the sound of his nickname. "How is that not what that means?"

"Oh, I don't know," Jade said, "maybe I just think it was _regular_ drama when Dave _died_, our Sprites _died_, and Rose was _gone_ and Jack decided he'd rather come to your session and kill _your_ dreamselves than stay behind, in a session _that was trying to eat us!_"

Karkat coughed. "Look, let's just back the train back to the original tracks here. Here's the issue: Kanaya latches on pale to people where she's supposed to go flushed. It's a problem and I think we'd all be happier if it stopped right about now!"

Kanaya sighed, and told the other three: "This is true."

"So you do like her?" Jade asked her. "I mean... are you attracted to her?"

"Well, yes!" Kanaya said, as though it was no notable thing that someone would be attracted to Rose Lalonde, even her.

Even John could see that was a non-answer. "But do you want to... I dunno, kiss her?"

Kanaya looked somewhat ill at having to answer these questions in front of everyone. "...Sometimes? I mean, just now, we were joking, and standing close, and... she looked into my eyes I just wanted to step forward again and... and... I lost the moment." She began to blush jade. "A-and then I came over here."

"..._THAT'S HOW YOU KNOW!_" Karkat bellowed. "Unbelievable. Just... You!" He pointed to Nepeta. "Stop grinning!"

"I can't," Nepeta said through a smile, "_it's precious._"

Karkat continued to fume. "You were right there making porn jokes with her but the second - _THE SECOND_ - you thought of doing even the littlest, chastest grubcrush thing, you fall apart like a stack of abstinent bricks!"

"I'm not afraid of kissing, Karkat," Kanaya insisted, somewhat cross. "I just don't know if that was the direction I wanted to go. I mean, just moments before, Rose and I were talking about her in combat and I felt... uh..." And then, all at once, Kanaya remembered. "_You_," she growled, and advanced on Karkat.

John's reaction to this was: "Uh...", which was also how lost his chance to intercept.

"This debacle in the basement!" Kanaya snapped. "Three Underlings hold up the entire group, Sollux comes in looking half-dead and Rose openly bleeding-"

Karkat rolled his eyes, the only one not particularly concerned by Kanaya's sudden outburst. "She was not 'openly' bleeding."

Kanaya stepped right into his personal space. "You've been leaving the Humans utterly undefended in every one of these mandatory excursions. The only reason Rose is safe right now is because she was having a talk with Tavros, and I don't want to be the negative one here, but _we both know that that was a stretch._"

Karkat took to Kanaya's invasion by holding up a hand to push her back by the collar. She did not budge. "If your _girlfriend_ told you anything today, it's that her little splash of blood came from messing around with Nitram! Yeah! I noticed! Because I look out for my fucking squad!"

"_Your Squads Are Tired And Fed Up_" Kanaya said. "_The Humans Are Being Exhausted By Their Exposure And It Is Going To Cost You. If You Looked Out For Your Squad-_" Kanaya grabbed at Karkat's wrist, but as she gave him no ground, he gave her no leverage, "_-You Would Be Covering The Humans So That You Dont Have To 'Look Out' For Them One Day And Find Rose Dead In A Drain Pipe_"

Jade flinched when Kanaya said the words "Drain Pipe", and she lashed out behind her with her left arm, hitting the wall. Karkat could not help but notice that. "I..." Jade was not sure. Why did she do that? "I thought there was... behind me..." She turned and glanced at the wall, only a few inches away, and then back to Kanaya with realization: "...Sorry."

Karkat was lost in thought for a moment, before he pushed Kanaya away when she was not expecting it. "Fuck, you are pale for her, too. If you two pity vacillate, you're gonna hear it from me, you got that? ...Shit, why've you got to be backwards, Maryam?"

Kanaya's anger faded into confusion. "I-I'm not following."

"Some people find someone they're bonding with and then go 'Oh, shit, you're going to hurt someone.' Or maybe they are sort of like you, and they go: 'You're a problem, let's can that,' and then they bond later. But you!" He shook his head. "You're a cracked diamond, is what you are." Kanaya looked hurt at that, and angry. "First you find someone you're attracted to. But then you're all... 'You have a problem. We're gonna fix that, but not for you. I want to fucking _tame_ that action.' You never get to the bonding, because it's never been..." Grunt. "Real."

Kanaya broke away, but Karkat followed with his arm. "Hey," he said, clapping her on the shoulder to re-establish a non-violent physical contact. His voice was calm again, even comforting. "I put everyone off bodyguard duty because the faster the fights end, the less risk everyone's at and the less tired they'll be. I know we fucked up today. Is it going to happen again? Probably." Kanaya nodded, sad but calmed. "And when it does, do you know what I'm going to do? " She turned back to meet his eyes. "_I'M GOING TO KEEP DOING THE EXACT SAME FUCKING THING BECAUSE IT'S THE RIGHT PLAN!_"

Kanaya pushed him away again in a huff, and Karkat turned back to the others. "Moving on! Leijon! We know you wanna! You've been very quiet; wish you'd do it more often, but now's your time! Dazzle us with your over-romanticized kawaii stock plots!"

"Thank you, Karkat!" Nepeta said with a grin. She then scooted over toward Kanaya, who had plopped herself down against the nearest desk. "Kanaya..." she said, resting her paw-gloves up on Kanaya's knees. "I want you to know I think it's really special that you've got pale feelings for Rose. And I think that this is important to you too." She reached toward Kanaya with a drooping sleeve, to touch her face the way cats do, or possibly to wipe at tears not quite there. "And I think that's something Rose would really like to hear, that you care for her like that. Because the Humans don't have relationships like ours and sometimes it's going to be hard to understand! So I figure, if she knows how you care, you should tell her, and that's going to be more important to her than all the old pale gestures for a while. Real important." Nepeta glanced over toward Rose. "And she trusts you, I think. And if you think she needs someone to look after her... I think you know best, and I think she'd want that, because I think she wants you closer one way or another, like Jade said. So you should."

John and Karkat took in the scene with outright astonishment. Jade caught them gawking and clicked her tongue. "Silly! Of course she can talk about moirallegience!"

Nepeta ignored them, except to flash a small smile probably meant for Jade. She then rested her head against Kanaya's knees as well. "But you've got to think about what you want to be for you, too. Now, I don't want to take Karkat's look at your moirallegience with Vwiskers at face value if that's not what it is... but I know I thought you were red at the time..."

Kanaya shook her head. "No. He's right. ...you can brag," Kanaya permitted.

"I was _so, totally right_," Nepeta crooned. She then drummed Kanaya's legs. "Okay, but seriously. It really sucks that that went bad," she said.

"Thanks," Kanaya said.

"I think..." Nepeta started, "that when you're talking about matesprits, if you sometimes picture yourself kissing, or touching, or..." and she coughed. Kanaya could not help but mimic her. "...Or really just talking to her! I think that's a sign that you might want that. I know that probably doesn't help, but if you think about those things get all filled with all those big fluffy feelings of whatever it is you want inside, then you're half way there! You get to say 'You make me so happy, and I wanna make you happy too!'"

She paused. Kanaya was not meeting her eyes. "But with your moirail, it's not 'I wanna make you happy too.' It's a different feeling. Really. I think if you'd had one before, you could tell. You've gotta be able t'..." Nepeta reached out and turned Kanaya's head toward her. "You've gotta be able t' look them in the eye, and be filled with this feeling that says..." Nepeta swallowed and spoke without her usual cutsey lisp. "'I don't want you to ever...'"

And then, in spite of her attempt to keep Kanaya's eye contact, it was Nepeta who looked away, up and aside. Equius was still in the room, eye still on his clock. "...'I don't want you to ever be sad again,'" she finished. And then she sighed, catching her head in her hands. She seemed to have lost utter track of what she was saying, and became lost in thought. She was not missed: Kanaya was already pondering the situation in her head.

"But! _But_..." Nepeta said. "That's just me stating the facts! Now, if you want my _opinion!_ I just know that if you had Rose over to your place, set up some candles, maybe some lavender, _maybe some purretty mewsic... classical, jazz, some slow dancing... you could get all dressed up! and rose would be all dressed up too in her shiniest-_ Gyack!"

"Annnd sorry to interrupt the fanon," John said, pulling Nepeta off of Kanaya, "but I think we know where this is going."

"You would both be so pretty!" Nepeta shouted to Kanaya as she was yanked. "You know it, too! Do iiiiiit!" She then began a throaty growl. "John," Nepeta warned, and when she had been pulled fully back to the line, she snapped: "John Egbert!" John set Nepeta back down at Jade's feet. "Don't you interrupt me when I'm shipping, John! We'll have words!" She then flashed a spade at him with her hands. "_the shunned fangirl reminds the silly human of her darker side!_ Ow!" she added when Jade tugged her hair. "I'm just kidding!" she insisted. "...the shunned fangirl'll remind _you_ of my darker side..."

"Nepeta?" Kanaya said with a bit of a laugh.

"Yes!" Nepeta said, almost surprised to be addressed.

"Thank you," Kanaya said. Nepeta bowed. "So the vote is hearts two, diamonds one?"

It seemed, in fact, that everyone was against a vote in general, but the kerfuffle was interrupted when Nepeta suddenly got to her feet. She hopped out of the room and toward the centre, where she flagged down Equius mid-way to the transportalizer. "Kanaya," she said by way of farewell, "if you're worried about empty quadrants, don't. I can think of some other good suggestions! But I still think-hey! You!" she called. Equius had left without her. "We still have to talk, you know!" She ran after him, stumbling over her tail as she went. As she disappeared, Jade noticed that Nepeta had cast a worried glance toward Feferi before leaving, and that Feferi had nodded.

"Okay, let's just get this voting thing out of the way," Karkat said, "by which I mean, not touching it at all. Listen," he said, dropping to a crouch and pointing to Kanaya. "I know this is messed up, in your head right now. I don't know if you believe me, but I think you do. But there are only two people that can decide this for you. Me," Kanaya rolled her eyes, "Or _you_ with the help of _her_."

"That's three."

"It's two sets of two. How much do you think my vote is worth? Look, either you two sit down and have one of your dullfuck conversations and pick a quadrant together, or _you_ decide and make a move like you obviously want to do! Like I wanna see you do!" he added. "She'll fill in the rest."

"He's right, Kanaya," John said. "I mean, what's the worst she's going to say? No?"

"Yes," she replied, and not alone. She had said it, sad; Karkat, derisively; and Jade as well, somewhat absent, her mind drifting back to Aradia and Sollux's estrangement and the way that Dave had lingered on how he had told Terezi that they should be friends before he had mentioned talking about Jack at all.

"All the better to go in there kissing or restraining straight-up, you know what I mean?" Karkat ask. "Can you do that?"

Kanaya shook her head at once, though she said: "I don't know."

"Okay," John said. "I do have another idea and maybe this one will actually work." He too squatted down, next to Karkat. "Rose's next day off is coming soon. No surveys, no imps to flush out." John and Karkat shared scheduling duty. "You only have surveys that day. She's gonna hang out with you like any other day. When that's done, you two go hang out at your place."

"This is starting to sound like Nepeta's plan," Karkat muttered. "Five steps to privacy and five more to the bedroom."

"I can't help the size of my sector, Karkat," Kanaya protested.

"Well sure, Karkat," John said, "why not have a private relationship talk in the middle of the lab, then?"

"Is that where this is going? Because it doesn't sound like that's where this is going."

John rolled his eyes to Kanaya. "Here's my point. You've got all day to talk to her. The plan? Don't let her go until you've told her how you feel."

"Don't..." Kanaya started.

"You don't get to go either," John said, with authority, though he summarily added: "Well, I mean, if you have to go to the bathroom or something, but... not my point! My point is: in a few days, you're going to tell her no matter what, and the next day, you're going to be matesprits, or moirails, or..."

"Or dumped," Kanaya said.

"I was going to say 'Or maybe surprise auspistice buddies,' I don't know. My point is: you're going to be happy and you'll be in whatever quadrant you want to be most or I don't know Rose. And that's going to feel great. To have it out in the open and be able to... well, I guess it depends."

"_Now_ it sounds like Nepeta's," Jade said. "But I like it."

"There's no one like John Egbert to get straight to telling them how they feel," Karkat griped, "but if it gets you out of this funk, I'm for it. Can you do that, Kan?"

Kanaya looked at her hands, shook her head and then said, "...I'll do what I can."

"Good," Jade said, but then she sighed. "This is why I'm not dating. Just not interested... and just not big enough for it."

"Why is everyone so fucking afraid of dating?" Karkat said. "You, John, I haven't heard a honk from Gamzee, and I hear something's up with Ampora too, not that I give a rat's ass. All a pack of cowards. No Drones around and everyone suddenly decides it's time to sit on their thumbs. Well I've got words for that!" he said, and started out of the corner. "...But for now, I'm going go wake the chef like I should have half an hour ago. Haven't seen him in forever, he's probably fallen off a cliff for all I know. John, I need you to go get that cinematic masterpiece of yo-"

"Rose told me," he said at once, and produced the DVD.

"Was that what that was about?" Karkat asked, and snapped the package. He turned it instinctively to the back cover, ignoring the front, and the synopsis thereon. "Isn't she useful. Why, someone should date her." Kanaya snorted. "...Damn," he said as he read on. "This was practically chosen for you, Kanaya. Reserve a double blanket."

"What are you talking about?" Kanaya asked, reaching for the DVD.

"Aaactually, Karkat," John said, "Rose didn't so much say as imply, but..." he pointed toward his friend and Tavros.

"...Tavros," Karkat said. "Tavros and..." John, Jade and Kanaya all pointed down the aisle. "...Oh, you've got to be kidding me," Karkat said. His shoulders drooped, but then tensed up in a fit of rage. "I can't... I... _this is a good thing_!" he called out, as if to reassure himself. "If it shuts Eridan up... and Vriska doesn't murder anyone... Rose has made a good call." He returned the DVD to John with one hand, and he fish-hooked Kanaya's bent horn in a farewell tug.

"Hey," he said as he walked away, "Harley, I wanna know what this jumble of yours means in detail, tomorrow before lunch. Egbert, you're with us."

"I have survey tomorrow, Karkat," Jade said, annoyed.

"You have survey _and_ a meeting with your co-leaders! Ta-da! Multitasking! It's like I'm trying to work you all to death, and yet somehow, you'll survive!" He then turned back to the door nearest the television, down toward the cafeteria and kitchen.

"Sorry Jade," John said after he had gone.

"It's all right," she said. "You have to go too."

"Yeah, I don't think he'll let me forget it, either."

In the distance, they heard scraps of a conversation Karkat seemed to be having in the hall that led to the cafeteria. What stared with in a relatively civil tone ended with a bout of maniacal, teal laughter, and Karkat stormed off as Terezi returned to the room and a couch covered in scalemates. The three all cast a look at her in curiosity. They had not been seen much of Terezi after her initial explosion, save a mandatory Imp flush she had spent in brooding silence, but she had been up and about the lab since the morning, and appeared much improved as she set to her toys.

John coughed to clear the air. "For now, Jade, can you help me get this room set up? I need someone to go fetch some blankets and pillows."

"Try my room," Kanaya said. She reached down to her lap, casually, but did not seem to find what she was looking for at first. She then swept the nearby floor, before having a spark of realization and reached up, toward her ear, where she retrieved the thin key she had been looking for. Using it, she retrieved her laptop and unlocked the transportalizer.

"Thanks Kanaya," John said, and then he reminded: "Two days!" He then playfully tried to catch her with the same fish-hook tug as Karkat, only for her to calmly deflect him.

"Good luck, Kanaya," Jade said as she passed. Kanaya nodded her off, and Jade stepped aside toward the central hub. As she left, Kanaya watched her watching Rose, openly now, clapping fist into bare palm in thought and frustration.

John rubbed his hands as he stepped forward. He took in the room, and Jade did so as well, seeing it covered in dirt and rust flakes from the underlab, not to forget old bits of food and waste. "Okay!" he shouted to everyone else in the room. "Needs to be blown straight out, don't you think?"

"Uh-oh," Jade said, cluing in. "John, don't you dare wipe out my notes!"

"Oh!" he looked over and chuckled. Kanaya, cluing in same as Jade, had a look of panic in her eyes. She took to her feet and started across the room. "Okay," John said. "I promise."

Realizing he was serious now, Jade shouted: "Run!" to warn the others. Kanaya took off at one, and Jade ducked out the transportalizer, accidentally forcing Kanaya to go around. The surprised shouts of her allies as the rust and junk took to the air could almost be heard through the floor.

* * *

><p>Karkat's get-well party for Sollux, now having lost its purpose with Sollux being well and fully rested, went off without a hitch all the same. Somehow, he managed to cram everyone present through the thin hall to the cafeteria, where they ate a meal of sweetened, cooked cluckbeast that had been prepared in some Alternian style that all three Humans present found they quite enjoyed. Dinner went off without a hitch, better even, Rose felt, when Eridan invited Tavros to sit with him (no more remarkably than "Hey, Tav," and a wave to the nearby bench, but it was a start, and they did talk the whole meal through). Even better, when John sat next to Vriska, she showed no sign whatsoever of bothering her two friends: Rose almost wished she had thought of using John in the first place. Rose sat next to him, and overheard Vriska say that she had gone to her room to bathe out the sweat from the strife and to "change clothes". With Kanaya on her other side, Rose watched for a reaction to Vriska's not so subtle hint that she had alchemized a new set and tossed the old, as ever, and was not disappointed.<p>

The only downsides to the meal were the ones Rose could have well predicted. Nepeta returned in the middle of the meal, grabbed her plate and sat down next to Jade in a huff. Later, reassuring but perhaps more predictable, Terezi stood up on the cafeteria bench and shouted: "The noble Pyralspite has been kidnapped!" This was clearly the conclusion to the investigation she had been running the entire meal, sniffing under tables and poking diners with her cane. "Snatched away from this very dinner table not an hour ago. I am aghast! Vagrants! Justice will fall upon you! _Justice!_" Last and most predictable of all, Dave, Aradia and even Equius were nowhere to be seen.

Slowly, they began to funnel back out into the main lab, which John and Jade had perfectly prepared with Kanaya's multicoloured cushion pile and a selection of blankets from the unused dorms. Karkat was in first, leading Sollux, and he turned back to the half or so of the group immediately following him.

"_ALRIGHT FUCKERS,_" he said to his tailing audience. "_I AM STARTING THIS SHIT RIGHT NOW. EVERYONE TAKE YOUR SEATS AND DON'T WASTE TIME FUSSING!_"

He vaulted the collection of DVDs he and John used as a tea table, and was soon fiddling with the DVD player. Sollux followed, and after he had dimmed the lights with his computer's master control program, he took a seat on one of the blankets nearest the television, if only to have a front-row seat to Karkat telling off the electronics. Jade sat across from him, and Nepeta next to her, still eating the remnants of her late-started meal, while Rose took a seat on the couch, which had been pushed far to the back by her friendleader on a windy impulse. John took to the floor, just beside Vriska, with whom he was still talking, and Tavros, as instructed, sat as far away from her as he could, even pulling out an office chair so he wouldn't be spotted dragging a blanket. Eridan, confused by this behaviour, did the same, and Rose overheard him say, "So, like, what the hell?" as he sat down.

The rest of the party took some time to arrive, which worked just fine for Karkat's attempts to outsmart a ten year old piece of electronics. Feferi eventually sat down curled up next to the guest of pseudo-honour, and it was to the sight of them cuddling into place that Kanaya arrived. She took a look at them and then sat next to Rose as planned, but perhaps a bit further apart than she would have on any other day. Even Rose noticed that. Next, Gamzee came down the hall just as things were coming together with the player, a slice of cake on his plate that had definitely not been at dinner, and last of all Terezi, who arrived after some delay with cake of her own.

"...Well if he gets one," she said, as Karkat tried to glare her down.

"Nobody else gets any gog-forsaken cake!" Karkat ordered. "Siddown! I'm starting this no matter what you dips want so you better all be good and comfortable. Today's movie is..." he double-checked the box. "Well, it's a Human movie, so of course I don't know the ending, but from what little research I got to run in between Egbert's ill-advised dust storm and then dinner, I'd probably call it something like Innocent-Teenager-Emblematic-Of-Intended-Core-Demographic-But-Peppered-With-Largely-Superficial-Flaws-Falls-In-Flushed-Relationships-With-A-Supernatural-Undead-Being-Similar-To-A-Rainbow-Drinker-Despite-Conflicts-With-Other-Supernaturally-Charged-Creatures-Especially-In-Sequels-With-Additional-Conflict-Caused-By-General-Societal-Distrust-Of-Such-Mythical-Creatures-And-Later-A-Relationship-With-Another-Paranormal-Being and I don't know, stuff happens, it doesn't say."

"You know, I wondered how you'd take this," Rose admitted to Kanaya, who was laughing.

"I can see why everyone thought this was meant for me," she said.

"I said you'd like it," Rose joked back. "That's all."

"Well, I think so," she said. "Because I actually can think of a movie we have like this, and it's wonderful."

"Oh, dear," Rose said. "_Trollight_ exists. Now I have to see it, don't I?"

"You do."

"Damn."

There was a notable pause, during which Karkat took a seat at the opposite end of the couch, and Rose heard the crescendo of company logos go by on the screen. She did not watch the film. Instead, her eyes were on Tavros and Eridan, who showed no sign of starting their overdue conversation. Karkat let the film run its trailers, partially because he always hoped to spot something else worth watching, but also out of punishment for the Humans, since they forced him to show them the propaganda the government attached to all of his films.

The movie began in its fair time, and Kanaya and Nepeta were soon very deep into the proceedings, almost from the moment the romantic leads were both on screen. For the longest time, however, it seemed like there would be no drama between Tavros and Eridan. Rose felt her heart sink a little, and was surprised at how affected she felt by it. She supposed she had just gotten her hopes up. The rest of the room was less quiet. People talked, shot clever or rude comments to the screen as was their want, and Vriska, who had already been laying down, lay her head down on John's lap. It was a casual move, so casual in fact that Rose felt bad calling it a "move." She suspected because, well, it was Vriska, but at the same time, it didn't feel like a Vriska stunt simply by its subtlety. After all the time she had spent watching Vriska and Eridan tear themselves apart, Rose could not deny that if the Spider Troll was going to make a move on her friend, she would be more ostentatious about it. This seemed just plain... friendly. The way John reached down to gently play with her hair seemed just as natural - indeed, he was so absorbed in the film that Rose thought that it could have been her or Jade in his lap and he might have behaved much the same. Terezi, who was lying on her back, sniffed towards them and made a face.

They were not the only ones mucking about. Terezi set aside her empty plate with more than a clatter, Gamzee's fell straight from his lap, forgotten at the sight of a shimmering vampire, and Sollux shifted his weight. "Sorry," Feferi whispered, and she sat up on her own. She then stayed off of him, which seemed fair at first. Rose saw her cast a look back at him a minute later, but she did not come any closer; Sollux soon cast a questioning look back, but neither noticed the others' concern. Fed up with the stalled drama all around her, Rose sought her own comfort, and leaned into Kanaya. She found, to her surprise, that her friend had already gravitated part way back her way. Before Rose knew it, she was snug against her, and soon, she was waking up. She had not been asleep long, but in the time she had, Kanaya had tucked some of her hair under the headband to keep it from falling over her face, and Eridan and Tavros had started talking.

"_wOW, eRIDAN, i NEVER SAID I THOUGHT OUR RELATIONSHIP WAS DEAD,_" was the first interesting thing Rose heard in full.

"Really? Not even to Roz?" Eridan sighed. "I hear things, Tav. Through my network of crack informants."

"You mean Vriska?"

"Okay, maybe."

As she listened closely, Tavros and Eridan's voices in one ear and Kanaya's funny, double-pulse Troll heartbeat in the other, Rose was having quite a bit of trouble even pretending to pay attention to the screen. Apparently so were some of the others, as Rose noticed them glancing in the direction of the pair from time to time. Her plan to keep attention off of poor, nervous Tavros was failing, but if Tavros and Eridan didn't notice, it might... just...

"Tav, I swear, I don't know where you got that idea, but I never wanted to come across that way, 'cause..." Eridan looked to his hands. "Because you're the best thing there is in this place, you know? I don't know how everyone else does it, trapped in this box if they don't got you to talk to." Tavros was taken somewhat aback, but Eridan chuckled. "You're the only one who's funny, an... honest. Telling it how it is, you know?"

"Oh, I don't..."

"Sure ya do," Eridan said. "Maybe you've got some trouble getting it out sometimes, but that's just because it's always right, is all, and some people don't wanna hear what's right." Eridan seemed particularly displeased at those sorts of people. "But I know it it's right. Gam knows it too, hell even Vris knows it. We've got you to sort us all out. And with me, you've really... I mean, after we started talkin'..."

Past the movie, Rose did not hear a peep from the rest of the room, save someone who shifted their weight just so before deciding this too was too much of a risk of noise. In spite, Rose sat up on her own, feeling her muscles cramp in protest. She smiled at Kanaya as she got up, and Kanaya seemed to understand, though she seemed disappointed. Perhaps it was the mood in the air, but Rose realized that, with Tavros and Eridan tended to, her own relationship had moved to the top of her priority list, without her leave. For the time, Rose went back on her watch, though her mind remained elsewhere and her hand edged up against Kanaya's leg, until Eridan returned to speaking and her focus, at least, sharpened.

"...What Iﾒm saying is..." Eridan cleared his throat softly. "_...there ain't nothing in the wworld that wwould stop me from showwing you howw much you mean to me, tavv. its fucked i screwed up an made you think this was dead. if i kneww you wwere that concerned i'd havve been right there on hands and knees to showw you just how y... what, what is it?_"

Tavros, even timid, sleepy-eyed Tavros, was laughing. "I'm sorry, you're just so over the top." Eridan, deflated, crossed his arms and tried to shrink away, to which Rose expected Tavros would recant, but he did nothing of the sort. Rather, he held out his hand to touch Eridan's leg, and said, "It's perfect 'you.'"

A muffled noise started up across the room: the barely recognizable sound of Nepeta squealing into her cuff. To her left, Rose heard Karkat say something to the effect "Oh for fuck's sake..." before retrieving his crabtop and distracting himself with the power of the internet.

Eridan took Tavros' hand in his own and leaned forward to whisper: "Tav, I'm..." But he cut himself off and pressed forward into a kiss, unpractised but enthusiastic both, and Nepeta exploded into a burst of sound before collapsing to the ground.

"Uh..." said Jade, on whose leg her head had landed. "Are you okay?"

"Don't touch me," Nepeta squeaked, dreamily. "_i died._"

Everyone was more or less openly spying on the couple at this point, but it was not all peace and voyeurism. "Hey," John whispered to the girl in his lap. Where he had just been casually playing with her hair before, John deliberately combed it back to get a better look at Vriska's face. Rose did not need to see it to know she was livid. John set a hand on her shoulder and, in reflex, she snapped her own hand up to seize it, but when she met his eyes she seemed to calm somewhat. With a tip of his head, he made a suggestion, and soon they had both left via the transportalizer, first her, and then, apprehensive, John. Rose did not see Vriska again that night; John, she only heard return to his room just before she fell asleep. She did not ask how the talk went the next day, but he looked very tired.

The movie went on, but when Eridan broke the kiss to hug his matesprit, Tavros did not seem much interested in returning to it. "Eridan... I was running around all morning, and I think I'm going to fall asleep on your shoulder."

"Tav, don't do that, we're in roller chairs, we'll just go sliding across the room."

"Heh, yeah."

Gamzee shot them both a thumbs up from across the room, tongue wagging out the side of his mouth, but as for the rest of the audience, they were all soon back to the movie. Rose even restrained her snark, happy to have been of use, happy to have Kanaya shift over and lie on her lap (lying against her shoulder proved a liability with horns), and that she let Rose rest her hand on her arm. She was even happier her friend and would-be whatever kicked off her sandals and began to poke Karkat in the gut, pretty much whenever he told someone off for getting in front of the screen, or when he told off a certain couple for necking, or told her off for poking him in the gut with her toes.

She was less pleased when the audience clamoured to see the sequels as well. _Trapped, Rose Lalonde,_ she thought. _Trapped in a trap of your own devising._ She promised to be less cruel in the future.

* * *

><p><em>First Drafter's Club for this chapter talks about Mirann and little bit about Feferi. You know where to find it.<em>

_One of the first pieces of fanart I ever received was for this chapter's analogue in the original! You can take a look at the piece, by Beep, over at the Tumblr (though that may have to wa._

_I do have a small folder of some other bits of fanart I've been lucky enough to find, so I'll be happy to highlight those I can still find when their chapters arrive: I just wanted this first one to be first! If you have a piece you'd like to share with me and others - or just as important, if you'd not and are afraid you're in my little folder - drop me a line!_

_All right, folks, you got two chapters out of that deal, but I've been away from my external influence for far too long. It's back to work for me. And like I promised, you'll be getting updates on my progress weekly from today: Tuesdays, that is, until I'm finished the next block, which hopefully won't even be that long. Check the Tumblr, it's the best I can do for you here at FFn! See you when the next chapter's ready, I am looking forward to it!_


	8. The Black and White Turnabout

"Oh no! The ambient temperature is above the levels expected even by the local Caribbean flora and fauna!"

"The what?"

"It's _too warm!_" shouted the tiny, yellow Squiddle, who edged oversized cokebottle glasses up his noseless, earless face. "If we don't do something soon..." Dramatic close-up. "It will be summer _all year long_!" Crescendo. Commercial break.

Kanaya looked up from her laptop, sighed and shook her head. "The introduction of these younger characters ruins the dynamic of an already floundering program."

"You're worried about the integrity of the Squiddles?" Jade asked. She had spent most of the morning cleaning up the "theatre" from the night before and was glad to have someone to talk to about her choice in background noise. "I'm touched, but do you hear yourself talking?"

"I stopped being interested in their integrity when they began to intercut used Season 1 footage with the new," Kanaya said. She pointed absently to the screen and then flourished as a shot of Rasberry and Mint from the original season flashed by as if to prove her point, its sparkling anime style clashing dramatically with the sharp but poorly restored second season footage, in its Western-styled, Asian-produced look. The Squiddle... couple? were scouting out the location of the villainous Colonel, with the help of the local animals. Jade was not sure if she would call the two a "couple," really, but she was edging that way. The new season had dropped season 1's anime-driven Unresolved Tangling Tension between the two in favour of just plain making them T-Buddies, but Jade's urge to call any set of tangle buddies a "couple" had more to do with being up to her neck in card suits than anything else.

"You're not looking at it the right way," Jade said. "You've gotta think of it like a grub! Am I saying that right?"

"Depends on what you're saying."

"Well, I just mean, this season was a big hit with us Humans!" Jade said 'us' but really meant the 4-8 demographic of the early 90s. But also herself. "_Squiddles!: Kids!_ was how we all learned to 'fall in love with friendship!'"

Kanaya gave Jade a look over her laptop. "...sometimes I get the impression that you four aren't my best reference for Human behaviour."

"Technically," Jade said, "with everyone else gone, our behaviour _is_ Human behaviour."

"I know. I'm concerned."

"Oh no!" shouted a talking scallop. It was one of the new animation company's attempts to cannibalize the animal sidekick trend of the Disney renaissance, then ongoing, and was accompanied by two barnacles and a series of marching ants. Just after the scallop's warning, a tank made of coconuts and bamboo bulldozed its way through the treeline, pumping smog into the sky so thick that you could almost see it staining the script with invective warnings against acid rain.

"Localizers missed a spot there," Jade said. "Like: the whole tank! Type 97 Chi-Ha Medium. A World War II Japanese tank," Jade rattled off instinctively. "Well, in bamboo and coconuts." Goodness knew Grandpa would never have let her get away with not knowing. Jade double-checked her fact in one of her holographic windows just to keep in shape. Between her and Kanaya, the air about the couch was filled with flickering holograms, and they both frequently tapped at the other's programs by accident. "Of course, like most tanks, completely land based, so it shouldn't be here at all. Not that the Japanese didn't have amphibious tanks, even during World War II if the artists were going for a 'somewhat out of date' feel, but if you're going to stick a British Tank Commander parody in the driver's seat and-" she gritted her teeth, "-_localize the show to the Gulf of Mexico,_ you could probably show some variety."

"Whatever you say," Kanaya droned.

The tank's Tarsier commander (seriously, it's like they weren't even trying) popped the hatch and took a look around, completely missing the technicolour Squiddles that jumped out of his way. His voice actor (the late Aidan MacDermott, always the anecdotal bridesmaid at the BAFTAs for his more qualified productions) began to rattle off his master plan in his best Jim Cummings impression, fully detailed so that all the children in the audience could neatly file the details in their minds for the remaining fifteen minutes of programming.

"Oh no!" called Mint (also MacDermott, though it didn't show). "He's going to destroy the whole atmosphere with fluorocarbons!" The whole atmosphere.

"Those are dangerous chemicals that will change the temperature in the air!" shouted Raspberry, all but gesturing to charts with corroborating data. Her voice was now under control, compared to the first season, and almost aristocratic from the lips of her newest voice actress. It was quite appropriate, given what the show's third studio would do to her character at the start of Season 3. "We've got to stop him! Quick, we've got to find the others!"

Jade, eager to dispense pointless trivia as she had been doing all day to no complaints, looked over from her screens and saw that one of Kanaya's screens facing her with a back of solid colour, rather than transparent. Jade found this curious: either Kanaya was looking at a red rectangle or she had somehow figured out how to private her windows. "How do you do _that_?" she asked.

Kanaya looked up and coughed. "Oh, that. Well, I suppose you, uh..." She began to stammer. "You put your legs, uh, over your partner's, uh..."

"Oh my god, you're actually are looking at porn," Jade said, wide-eyed.

Kanaya shrunk back into the couch. "The private window _is_ working, isn't it?"

Jade began to laugh. "I wanna see!" she said, and lunged toward the hologram window to spin it her way.

"No!" Kanaya cut off her hand, and tried to jab for the window's Close box. "What do you care?"

"Because it bugs you!" Jade said with another laugh.

"Jade!" Kanaya swatted Jade away again, "Don't- you- have- a cage- to build?" She changed tactics and grabbed Jade's hand out of the air, closing the box with the other.

"Aww," Jade said.

"Ugh..." Kanaya flipped errantly through several windows to vent her frustrations. "Why is everybody so obsessed with my porn-watching habits?" Kanaya demanded.

"Probably because most of us don't have any," Jade said, laughing still but feeling bad for her behaviour now that she could see Kanaya's reaction.

Kanaya harrumphed and returned to her work, at first, but when she saw Jade's puppy eyes (taught by a real puppy!) it was only a matter of time before she continued. "...It's a Grown-period woodcut," Kanaya admitted, "more artistic than anything." She began to go jade as she tried to explain. "I'm just trying... to divide what's actually necessary in our breeding process from what's an Imperial invention. People have been raising concerns." Kanaya's lie told on her hands as she twiddled her thumbs with some urgency. "...All right, people have voiced concerns and I've been raising them to the point of self-parody."

"How do you mean?"

"I mean several people have raised concerns about Drones, and lethality and... consent," she spat out at the end. "Rose on one hand, Strider's jokes, and I've had the impression in the past that some of our own..."

"Feferi," Jade said, without even thinking about it.

Kanaya nodded. "I've never had to think of it that way before. This whole sort of thing, really. I've dedicated my life to it, but I don't understand it!" She flicked a window closed, more forcefully than usual. "I'm in charge of a morally questionable institution and have to work out where to draw lines, and it's stressful," she confessed through her teeth. "Especially with you and yours."

"Us?" Jade asked.

"I just have to make sure that there are no cross-cultural issues," Kanaya said. Misinterpretations. Gog forbid, accidents."

Jade laughed. "Well, I don't really want Drones knocking on my door one day in the future, myself."

"Exactly," Kanaya said, "but that's easy, I just have them leave the right pheromone trails away from the Human colonies."

"Right," Jade agreed at first, but then: "'Human' colonies?"

"Well, wherever you and the Human ectoclones are all living in the end." Missing Jade's true concern, Kanaya changed the subject. "I'm also trying to determine what I can modernize. So I'm looking at the oldest surviving things I can find without the help of the fleet archives."

"Oh," Jade said, realizing Kanaya wanted the subject changed. "What did your porn show, then?"

"...S-stuff?" Kanaya's blush returned. "Troll nobility and landed highbloods. A few engravings of assorted..." and spat out as fast as she could manage: "...pottery."

Jade stifled a giggle and tried to make her disruption up to Kanaya. "Did you learn anything?"

"Not really," Kanaya said. "...Well, nothing on topic." Kanaya had put her heart into it just to make the joke, so Jade was happy to laugh at it. "It's just work," Kanaya reassured, as much to herself as Jade.

"You're just reading it for the articles!"

"If you're trying to get me to agree with your prank answer: I'm afraid I know that joke." Jade blew her a raspberry, and Kanaya shook her head at her. "I wish some people would take it more seriously, seeing as how it has to be done."

"Just curious!" Jade reassured. "Wouldn't you be?"

"Hmph." Kanaya did not oblige her with an answer.

"I'm curious about the historical stuff too!" Jade insisted. "Can't I see something that's not porny?"

Kanaya sighed, browsed for a moment and then passed Jade a window, wherein another woodcut depicted a Mother Grub in some old Troll artistic style, stirring a pot of monochrome goo.

Jade studied the image for a moment, surprised how quickly her interest shifted from teasing a friend to study. "Looks like how I understand it, so far."

"There are a few minor details I could note, all the same," Kanaya said. She pointed to a tool carved to one side. "I think it's a testing device, for the slurry. It shows up in some modern pictures and hasn't changed at all. I can prove it as soon as I have the archives, but Sollux has been very clear-"

"'Five minutes of your time for three hours of mine,'" Sollux repeated from over in his chair. "This database ain't gonna come in one big chunk, you know," he added as explanation to Jade. "You've gotta tell me what's worth grabbing first." Jade was surprised to notice that he was the only other person in the room at the time. Sure, a lot of people were on patrol, but not everyone. With the loud, high pitched Squiddle voices, it had been hard to notice that so many others had left!

Kanaya continued. "So I've been asking questions like: why has this thing not changed? Why has this thing changed at all? And that's what had me looking up the, uh, other image." Jade could not supress her giggle that time, and while Kanaya looked somewhat forlorn about the chance to continue having a serious conversation, she nevertheless supplied: "...do you want to see it?"

"Is it going to make you uncomfortable?" Jade asked, trying very hard to stop laughing, and failing.

"Yes." That was what she said, but all the same, Kanaya called up another private image and carefully put her hand flat up to it, then through to the other side. When she turned off the private mode, her hand was easily obscuring any troubling details. At the bottom of the image was one of the previously mentioned bits of "pottery." The top halves of several others appeared just above her hand at the top of the image.

"It... wow," Jade said. "It really looks just like a bucket. I mean, it's kind of uncanny, I sort of figured when you said 'pot' you really mean a jar or an urn or something."

"Yeah," Kanaya said, "which is why I was trying to figure out if it was for familiarity or... function?" she coughed. Then she added: "I'm trying to run this bucket-running operation and I don't even know the step-by-step of how they're literally used. It's not a good sign."

"I can see that," Jade agreed, trying not to think too hard about it.

"I'll tell you this:" Kanaya said, "the image does not answer my questions."

"I'll trust you on it," Jade said with a laugh, and leaned back into her seat.

Kanaya seemed surprised by her retreat, and almost leaned back herself, nearly uncovering the image by mistake. "Thank you," she said, before closing the window.

Back on the big screen, Raspberry and Mint had reunited with the Squiddles! Kids! of the title: three little rapscallions that had replaced much of the original cast when the second studio had not been willing to pay a full staff of voice actors, but _were_ willing to pay for a focus group, which concluded that "kids like kids." The new Squiddles' names were a point of contention among the fanbase. Tossing the ice cream premise, the new studio had decided to brand the children with inanity in lieu.

"Squiddler, c'mon!" called the young girl. "We've got to get in the tank so we can rescue the fluorocarbons!"

"Right behind you, Squiddette!" said the boy, Mint's little brother, who hoisted their hefty friend, Squibump, into the exhaust pipe before him. The characters squeezed through the pipe and appeared out of the burner inside, where they shook off a smudged layer of coal, not so much as warmed by their trip through a coal engine. Though the animators had forgotten him in the last shot, they were joined here by their yellow friend, who cleaned his glasses.

"W-w-w-where do you think we go, Squidradar?" asked Squibump, and Jade winced at the sound of the yellow Squiddle's name. Jade liked Squidradar nice enough, but his name would have been improved by a paper shredder and a smattering of glue. Not that the other Squiddles had fared that much better. Accompanying the Kids! was a whole crop of Squiddles, like "Squiddle Ruby", who was actually brown, focus-group creations Squiddle G and Squiddle Argyle the Warmhearted, who rapped, along with a vast supporting cast, none of which would survive the season close. Squiddle Darla the Coral Lumberjack, Squiddlepan the Wise, Squidzilla, Sqiubob, Squidnot, Squidesque, Squidmomma, Squidnanna, Squidpoppa, Squidbaby, and "Squid," the mollusk from the original season, who had been renamed "Octopus," causing Feferi to get up, turn around, and leave the room.

"How is the cage going?" Kanaya decided to ask, after some time had passed.

"Oh, I meant to ask you about that," Jade replied.

"You want my help?"

"Well sure! But no, I wanted to ask how you knew what my project was," Jade said. "I don't remember telling you."

Kanaya shrugged. "Well, it wasn't hard to work out. I mean..." She then disappeared in a blur of jade light, reappeared at the opposite side of the room and returned in the same manner, holding one of Jade's sheets of notepaper. "...Spacey math," she said in explanation.

"That was a waste of effort," said Rose, who had arrived at the transportalizer in the midst of her friend's display.

"I thought it proved my point," Kanaya said, handing Rose the sheet. It was immediately obvious she could not make head nor tail of it. To Jade it was simple: a few test equations to see if her Rat Trap could stop Jack from moving from Point A to Point B, Space-wise. "Don't get me wrong, it's not my strongest subject," Kanaya continued, "but I hardly suck at it, and I can't help but notice that Point A is on the first floor and Point B is in the engines."

"Engines?" Rose asked.

Technically, the engines were an idea Jade had so that they could build the Rat Trap where Jack would not find it, and then bring it to him, but since Rose knew nothing about the Trap in general, Jade retrieved the sheet and redirected Rose's attention the best way she knew how. "Look, Rose," she said, pointing to the screen. "It's Plop-Plop."

In spite of all her years of real or feigned refinement, Rose snorted at the sight of the Squiddles' tarsier foe. Confronted with the errant Kids!, MacDermott was hamming up a storm of megalomaniacal genius. "I'm sorry," she said to Kanaya.

"I don't get it," Kanaya said.

"The Colonel's name," Jade explained. "They made it 'Plack-Plack' in English but it's 'Plop-Plop' in Europe because they don't mind a poop joke over there."

"Which, by the way," Rose said in an aside, "ruins the joke about him hating the name, because what's wrong with 'Plack-Plack'?"

"What's not wrong with 'Plack-Plack'?" Jade asked.

"_I FOUND IT!_"

Jade blinked and paused the DVD before turning back to Feferi, who was glowing at everyone, smile wide and eyes bright, through a thick, patchy layer of motor oil.

"Okay, I was _)(OPING_ for a bigger crowd but this _is still pretty good!_" She skipped over to Sollux and kissed him on the temple, chasing him when he tried to dodge the grease. "I found the pumps," she told him. "Could you turn on the cleaning cycle?"

"I figured," he said, unsurprised. He was already at work on the computer.

"_Barely_ found it," Feferi said as she walked over to Jade and Kanaya. "I mean, I was going to look yesterday, before the movie, but John got me and Sollux trapped in the cafeteria with Karcrab!" She laughed. "But I got 'em! They were with the toilet pipes, ew, but-" Luckily, Jade never learned any more about the toilet pipes.

"All right!" Sollux said after a moment, and he pushed away from the desk. "Next up... some extra scrub brushes." He then reached into his sylladex and pulled out a surviving encrypted card, which crashed to the floor. He decrypted the thing and out popped a tired, spherical ball of metal. The ball turned itself on once freed and began to waver into the air, humming gently. It then turned, and beeped first at Sollux, then Feferi, and then began to float away.

"Uh-uh," Feferi said, hooking it with her trident. The thing was surprising fast and graceful. "No grub that way either, buster!" Pulling it closer, she began to pry at a panel on its side.

"Well, not the kind it's looking for," Sollux admitted. From his inventory, he collected another card, this one giving him a slimy, yellow slug creature.

Seeing the others' confusion - even Kanaya - Feferi explained: "Carpenter droid! Change out the programming... and they'll make a nice scrub droid, we figure!" The panel she had been working popped off and scrambled to a halt on the floor, revealing a dry, cold, red worm inside the Droid, which lay pierced by a half dozen probes and wires. Jade almost felt for the thing, until Sollux began to remove the wires and it started to gurgle and protest, not out of pain but at his attempts to remove it from its safe little home.

"Well I don't care how comfortable you are!" Sollux snapped. In spite of the irate thing's protests and bites, Sollux had soon swapped out the software grubs. The second grub seemed content to be hooked in, ghastly as the connections looked to Jade. As he worked, Feferi pried out the other side, revealing another grub. The two of them exchanged cautions, and after making a decision, Feferi took ahold of the Droid as he worked. When Sollux removed the second grub, whatever had been keeping the droid afloat gave out, and Feferi had to brace her legs to hold it up.

"I'll get it!" Rose offered, being closest, but when she took the other side, she shouted, "Holy _shit_!" Still, she put in her best effort, and they were soon balanced. Luckily, the droid recovered once Sollux had fully installed the new piloting program.

"Thanks, Rose!" Feferi said, clapping Rose on the arm.

Rose looked down at her grease covered shirt and sighed. "Don't mention it." She switched her outfit to a velvet ensemble from her sylladex.

"Okay, looks good," Sollux said, prodding the Droid. "The underwater pilot program should work with that model, but hook it up to your braintop to make sure it's not leaking." Jade was not about to question the word "braintop." Sollux continued. "With the lab doing most of the pumping, the droid should be done by morning if you help it scrub up a bit." The droid was already off, and disappeared through the transportalizer.

"_I'm gonna!_" Feferi squealed, and she kissed him again and darted back to the middle of the room as he batted away her oily self. She then headed over to the others. "Guys, we're gonna go swimming!" she called, fit to burst. She clapped her hands as well, which made a wet slap of oil and grease. That just made her laugh. "Where's Nepeta? I've gotta high-five somebody who won't krill me for it." She looked around for a moment - Jade had to admit, with Nepeta it probably was best to check dark corners and possibly look under furniture, but she simply wasn't there that day.

"She's on a flush," Jade answered.

"Oh, boo to the imps and Karcrab and John flushing them out," Feferi said. "_I've got POOLS TO FLUS)( BUST-ERS!_" To Jade's surprise, Feferi produced a long scrub brush from her strife deck. The thing crackled with numbers and electricity, which Jade felt almost certain formed the shape of a 2x3dent overtop of the broom. "...yeah, there are a few funny things in there," Feferi said to acknowledge Jade's searching look.

"FF, you said those were for harpoons!"

"_W-ELL MAYB-E I'V-E GOT -EV-ERYDAY N-E-EDS B-ESID-ES GLUBBING )(ARPOONS, )(U)(?_" She laughed. "...I think I have lunch in here, actually," she said, and her eyes glazed somewhat as she flicked through a selection of hacked cards in her mind. "...Nope! That's probably best, really. Have a wrench," she added, passing one to Jade that glimmered briefly two and a half feet off either end.

"Kanaya!" Feferi said, as if suddenly noticing her. Her clarification explained: "You said you needed to talk about the caves! Shoot!" She clapped a hand to her face and then had to spit away the taste of the grime. "Okay!" she declared. "Here's the plan! I've got to go scrub the gym. Can you talk to me the day after tomorrow?"

Kanaya took in Feferi's energy with a certain familiarity, but it was clear she was not quite used to it in person. "Why not tomorrow?" she asked.

Feferi feigned bashful, her arms coquettishly behind her back, before grinning and asking: "Can you come to my _pool party_ tomorrow?"

"You're having a pool party?" Kanaya asked. At the other side of the room, Jade could make out Sollux, rolling his eyes.

"Yes! Total yes!" Feferi smiled to everyone. "It's going to be great, and I'll have music, and there are big pools, and hot tubs, and diving boards, and I want everyone to be there, and please say you'll come? Just for a little bit?"

"I..." It passed neither Jade nor Kanaya's notice that the day of the party was also the day when Rose would have the day off and Kanaya was not to let her leave without telling her how she felt, however that was. "...I have survey," she tried, tipping her head toward her computer.

"After survey?" Feferi asked, hands clapped in eager prayer.

Kanaya turned toward Rose, who, while unaware of her plans, silently accepted that her friend was requesting her company. "I can come," Rose said, after reaching some sort of accord with Kanaya through poor hand signals and particularly poor quality mime.

"Not too late," Kanaya said, as her way of agreeing.

"That's _GR-EAT!_" Feferi cheered. "Can you swim?"

"...I lived in a desert," Kanaya said matter-of-factly.

"But there's plenty of time to learn, huh? And I bet you've got _PL-ENTY OF BAT)(ING SUIT DESIGNS IN YOUR BOOK!_" Jade was probably the only one to notice, but when Feferi made her guess, Kanaya winced and her hand went to her side, just below the underarm. "Rose? You swim?" Feferi asked, and got a nod. "Do you have a bathing suit?"

"I may have to resize it at the alchemiter, but it should pass," Rose said.

"Great!" Feferi's grin could not be wider. It was not physically possible. "Jade?"

"I'll come. I used to swim all the time!" she said.

"Good!" Feferi turned back and headed toward her matesprit. "Sollux...?"

"Like you'd let me stay," he mumbled.

"Hmph," Feferi pouted. "Well, that's where you're wrong." But she did not pursue the matter further. "Do you think Karcrab will come?"

"Are you kidding?" Sollux pivoted on his chair to face her. "KK raging around a hot tub in his boxers? I wouldn't let _him_ stay behind!"

Feferi giggled at that, too. Casually - perhaps too casually - she then added: "...do you think Aradia would like to come?"

Sollux blinked. "FF..." He touched her on a clean spot of her cheek and guided her down to his level, looked her in the eyes and said: "_2he'2 a robot._"

"Oh pssh," Feferi said, a dismissal that sounded remarkably like splashing water. "I don't care if she spends the whole party sunk to the bottom of the pool if she's enjoying herself!" She turned about, headed for the transportalizer. "She's your friend-" Jade noticed her smirk at this, "-and I want her to be there!"

"Whatever."

And then, as Feferi took to the transportalizer platform, something happened that changed the mood in the room entirely. Rose cocked her head, as if hearing something, and asked: "Does anyone else-?"

With a burst of light, Feferi was thrown back from the platform, and Terezi appeared atop it. Something about her seemed odd. She clutched her cane lengthwise in both hands, firm and steady, and seemed filled with overzealous gravitas as she looked slowly one way, then the other. She then took in a deep breath, let it out, and Jade watched as a shark-grin spread across her face. Save for the deep breath, Terezi was humming a tune.

"Yes," Rose said, rubbing at her ear. "That. How are you doing that?"

Feferi's grin grew even larger, if that were possible, and she slowly turned toward Rose, a low chuckle building in her throat. "..._Will_," she proclaimed. She then turned to take in the other occupants of the room and stepped forward, if not entirely off the platform. It was clear she did not want anyone to leave.

"...Ladies and gentlemen," she said after a dramatic pause. "Yesterday! between the hours of 16 and 18, someone stole my white-cloth, red-eyed scalemate, 'Pyralspite', right from under my nose." Her hand errantly fondled the red dragon-head grip of her cane, and then tightened her grasp about it. "She was taken from the cafeteria, when I was otherwise occupied. _One of us!_" Flourish. Everyone jerked back a touch. "Yes, one of us sixteen... _must!_ have been the culprit!" And then, Terezi pulled hard on the grip and drew a broken, glimmering half-sword from the cane and spread her arms, one weapon one way and one in the other, to claim the room for herself. "_TH3S3 ROOMS_" she proclaimed, "_4R3 NOW 4 CR1M3 SC3N3_"

* * *

><p>Your name is Rose Lalonde and your power-mad Troll associate and co-Seer has somehow convinced the game to play her own selection of background music. Oh, and she may have also hijacked the entirety of the central lab to find a lost stuffed animal, but existentially speaking, you find the background music far more distressing, to the point where you have disrupted the narrative flow with second-person musing. Stop that! Stop that at once!<p>

Rose, trying hard to put aside the fact that the game had begun playing "_BL1ND JUST1CE - S34RCH_ (Core)", according to the little box in the corner, approached Terezi with full caution. "Terezi..."

"I'm so glad you can hear it too, Rose!" she said, suddenly breaking character. "Do you know what it is? _DO YOU? 1TS TH3 SOUND OF TH3 HUNT ROS3_" Terezi replied. "And we? _4R3 TH3 HUNT3RS_" Terezi's breath stank of candy. "You're gonna be my assistant!" she declared. "You'll love it. I'm even running the investigation as per your Human standards of legal procedure, see?" She produced a long, thin slip of paper.

[_At this point in the AO3 version, I included a Clue(do)-style tracking sheet with the names of all 16 characters by colour, many taken from the real Clue(do) games. I can't very well figure out how to get you the image, short of recommending you read on AO3 yet again, but here are the names, at least:_

Miss Scarlett  
>M. Brunette<br>Col. Mustard  
>Sgt. Grey<br>Miss Green  
>Sr. Laurel<br>Mrs. Meadow-Brook  
>Mrs. Peacock<br>Prince Azure  
>Prof. Plum<br>Adm. Orchid  
>Lady Lavender<br>Dr. Periwinkle  
>Madame Rose<br>Sir Cardinal  
>Mlle. Jade<p>

]

"...Oh god," Rose said, as she poured over the sheet of allusions so poor it would have made the Parker Brothers roll over in their disintegrated graves. "I see I'm on this. ...I see _you're_ on this."

"Of course! _3V3RYON3 1S 4 SUSP3CT,_ but in your lunatic human tradition: _3V3RYON3 1S 1NNOC3NT UNT1L PROV3N GU1LTY_" Perhaps to prove her point, Terezi sheathed her halfblade.

"Well..." Rose mused. "That's... certain encouraging coming from you, Terezi. And yet somehow not. In the slightest."

"I know!" she said, and she threw an arm over Rose's shoulder. "You will be like the Human Watson to my Holmes." She then squeezed Rose's neck in her grip. "My potentially guilty, dragon-kidnapping girl-Human!Watson to my Holmes."

"Thrilled," said Rose, as she escaped Terezi grip. "But really, what do you want?"

"I'm being serious!" Terezi said. "We're going to _1NV3ST1G4T3!_ The fact that your game powers would make you a master criminal if you didn't suck at them in every possible way had absolutely no bearing on my choice of sidekick-to-keep-under-my-watch-at-all-times! Geeze! No trust!" She turned away, clucking her tongue, and came across Feferi, who was still on the ground. "How's it going, Peixes?" Terezi offered Feferi her cane.

"Just leaving, actually," Feferi said.

The cane was swept from her grip and Feferi slumped back to the ground. "Nope," Terezi said. "Nope. No one leaves the scene of the crime." Sniffing out the glares sent her way by the others at this news, Terezi caved. "Okay, fine! I'll make an exception. Let no one say I'm not a merciful overlord. But just you! After you answer one question."

"What's that?"

Rose was surprised when Terezi cut to the point. "Have _you_ seen my dragon?"

"I dunno..." Feferi said, cautiously. She glanced over at Sollux, who shrugged. "Well, yeah, it was in the cafeteria at some point, but we couldn't really see it from where we sat down. It's fishy!"

Terezi laughed at the pun. "Okay, you can go," she said, and walked away from Feferi, spinning her cane as she went. "Besides," Terezi said to Rose. "If these two are confederates, she'll come back to stop his hanging!"

Feferi brushed herself off, but could not help but laugh. "Well, at least you pick good bait."

"I knew I was nothing but chum to you," Sollux muttered.

That made Feferi laugh harder. "Okay, I'm going! Terezi!" she called. "Don't destroy anybody when you're done! Dooon't do it!" And she was gone.

"'When I'm done!'" Terezi said, like she was quoting something. "I like to think justice is never 'done,'" Terezi said, her grin widening as she turned toward Rose. "...Coming?"

"You had better go, Rose," Kanaya suggested, her eyes on her computer. "I don't think she's going to take no for an answer."

"Even my friends are against me," Rose lamented. "Okay. Fine. Just give me a pen for this highly legal document," she said, and she flashed the sheet first to Kanaya and then to Jade for a longer look, getting a laugh.

"Taken vows, Sister Kanaya?" Jade asked. Kanaya, not able to understand either joke, simply handed over a pencil.

"_3XC3LL3NT_" Terezi proclaimed, once again clapping her hand over Rose's back. "The rest of you stay here. _W4TSON!_" she shouted into Rose's ear. "It's time to search the true scene of the crime!" Terezi turned and then half-dragging Rose toward the cafeteria hall. "And it's time to interrogate... the cook!"

* * *

><p>DAY 45, HOUR 8<p>

"Gyah!" Rose jumped back, out of Terezi's grip and into the wall. The game continued to hammer-type captions on her field of vision.

ECTOBIOLOGY LABORATORY  
>CAPRICORN CAFETERIA<p>

Terezi laughed through her nose and clapped Rose on the shoulder before she pressed down the hall.

"How do you keep _doing_ that?" Rose called before following after her.

The cafeteria, as Rose found it, looked like a war zone, with food and dishes everywhere and burns on the wall. This has a great deal to do with the lack of cleanup after the meal the night before, but it helped that the leftovers was crusting against a real war zone. To hear Eridan tell it, the cafeteria had been the site of the last true climactic battle fought between the Trolls and the Underlings as the Trolls laid claim to the facility. It had taken a full seven of them to flush the place. Though no one else could confirm it, Eridan claimed to have fought an Ogre there, dressed in a frog collar and dragon scales, that had caught fire in the kitchen, but had kept coming and even survived multiple shots from Eridan's weapon. Whatever the truth of the war stories, the cafeteria still showed heavy signs of battle damage, though the Trolls had largely repaired the appliances, utensils and eating area to a pleasant and usable state (if one ignored the part of the wall that would crumble a little every time someone moved a bench anywhere in the room). For easy access to food, the Trolls had installed their primary alchemiter and its assorted gizmos in the pantry, just past the kitchen.

"There we are," Terezi said, pointing to the corner table she had been using the night before. It was now empty, save of a set of clean dishes she must have laid out for Pyralspite's "guests." It was tucked behind the wall formed by a part of the kitchen, and sure enough there were plenty of places in the room one could stand and not be able to see it, like from the entrance hall. Rose checked the rest of the room, if only for something to do, but saw sign of neither clues nor chef.

As far as Rose understood - and with Terezi's creepy, invasive GUI to back her up - the Cafeteria was connected directly to Gamzee's expansive sector. Unfortunately, Gamzee's was such a confusing place that the only evidence she had previously had for the connection was his word, and she had been well past trusting his word. True, more than a few times they had found him with his head stuck in the fridge, or eating ice cream in the middle of the empty dining hall floor, so if it was not connected he was at least good at sneaking past everyone to get inside. Whatever the connection, Gamzee was fond of the cafeteria, and one day not long after the Humans had arrived, he declared himself head chef and proved competent, though his schedule was scattered and ill-planned. Unless Karkat felt industrious enough to swat him awake and into the kitchen, being fed by the master was more a matter of waiting as far as one felt comfortable past lunch before heading in to do it yourself.

After a few minutes of Rose half-heartedly poking around, Gamzee showed his face. The far corner of the cafeteria from the entrance was dominated by a rectangular section of countertop, displays and sneeze guards, which guarded the entrance to the kitchen. It was there that Gamzee appeared: he ignored his guests at first as he carried a load of food from the kitchen to the old refrigerator and range they had set up behind the counters for casual cooking. The rest of the appliances were in the kitchen proper, though Rose could only make out the dishwashing stations that faced the door, all ready with some of the dishes from the night before for a cleanup that might never come. Gamzee, having finished stuffing the fridge, turned about to lay out some sandwiches behind the sneeze guard, and spotted the girls. Terezi had been rubbing her hands together, at the sight of her crime scene or her audience, Rose did not know, and pushed Rose toward Gamzee.

He grinned when she approached. "What is up my most loquacious motherfucker?"

"Hi Gamzee," Rose said, trying to take inventory of the sandwiches before she felt she had to make eye contact with him out of politeness. Gamzee was bopping his head - partway into their conversation, Rose realized he was doing it in time with the same background music she and Terezi were hearing. For the time, Rose ignored the behaviour. "...What's for lunch?"

"Fuck bra, it's _sandwich_ day." He gestured to a few cutting boards he had brought out with him, complete with fresh ingredients ready for sandwiches. He was even prepped to make egg salad, with eggs and a fresh, prepped frying pan waiting by the old range, thankfully out of range of the active pressure cooker he had left on the fire, hissing acrid froth from a split its side and against nearby pan of roast charcoal Gamzee had evacuated from the oven a week ago before baking the door shut, as it remained to this day. This, John had said, was where the magic happened.

Gamzee was still talking shop. "We've got turkey or eggs or just cheese over here," he was saying, "and squeezefruit on toast for the other, vegetarian-style." As if to prove his point, his deployed his modus, and three bottles of faygo and a set of nailclippers later, he had convinced it to deploy an Alternian toaster.

The kids and Trolls had been doing their best to exchange cuisines for the past few weeks; that Gamzee was able to find new flavours from the Kid's old homes still surprised Rose. It was one thing to still find new food while shuffling through an eleven-set pantry from Alternia, but the sheer quantity of food her mother and her friends' guardians had shoved into their pantries just days before the game had begun was equal parts reassuring and suspicious. Cake mixes and cereal boxes packed with shuriken aside.

Rose decided that, seeing as how Terezi had not shown an interest in her or Gamzee since they had arrived, she would order lunch. "I guess I'll have that... what did you call it?"

"Squeezeberry," he repeated, and produced one from under the counter. It looked more like a speckled jalapeno to Rose, about half the length of a finger. Pinching it at the base with one hand, Gamzee squelched it with the other until it had ejected a viscous orange paste all over the counter. He nodded, lips pursed and eyelids lowered, like an artist proclaiming his latest masterpiece complete.

Rose leaned slightly over the guard to get a closer look at the mess. "Uh... sure Gamzee, I'll have one, just... not that one."

"Cool," he said, swiping it up and sucking it off his finger. Rose watched for a while as he began to prepare some toast with one hand while absent-mindedly, but dutifully, washing the one that had just been in his mouth. Assured that her sandwich was being prepared by semi-professional Gamzee rather than utterly spaced Gamzee, she returned to taking stock of the adjoining dining hall. Terezi stood by her crime scene, stock-still, her cane held firm in her grip, and she breathed deeply to take in the whole scene.

"Gamzee," Rose said, and she turned back to discover that Gamzee's right side was now covered from wrist to waist in flour. "...have you seen Terezi's white dragon?"

"Why? She fly away?" Gamzee asked, his clean hand dripping water over the counter.

Rose laughed. "No, no..." She then noticed the fearful concern in his voice, and had to ask herself why she was surprised. "No, Terezi thinks someone might have taken her. It. The doll."

Gamzee's dragon-panic disappeared at once, and he went to dry his hand. "Well that's rough. If somebody took one of my dragons, we'd have to have some motherfucking words, y'know?"

"I suppose." Rose checked over her shoulder. Terezi had not yet reacted to Rose's line of inquiry, and Rose was beginning to wonder if she even listening. "...Look, she's probably going to want to interrogate everyone or something before we're done. ...Who's not on flush today? Dave and Aradia, aren't, of course..."

"Well, my coolest bro was in here to grab some fruit, so yeah, he's off. He told me he wouldn't be showing up to our jam session tonight, but I'm used to that. Fucker's never really around anymore, you know? But damn, ain't seen my robogal for _ages_." Gamzee looked out toward Terezi. "Fuck, look at her. Sad."

"Sad?" Rose said with surprise. Terezi looked more like she was trying to channel the spirit of the law into great, clenching fist about her prey, and given what she had already convinced the game to do for her, Rose would not be entirely surprised if that, too, came to pass.

"Yeah, she's looked bummed ever since she showed up again yesterday. Fuck, how's that happen to a girl? I mean, _JuSt TaKe a lOoK ArOuNd aNd sMiLe, YoU KnOw? CaUsE aIn'T ShIt sO FuCkInG WoNdErFuL?_" He nodded to himself. "I got it. I'm gonna make her some hot dogs."

"You're... pardon?" Rose asked.

"Crazy motherfucker loves my dogs, man! Two hot dogs with hot peppers and enough ketchup to drown the imperial guard." Gamzee immediately walked to the range and, after he turned Rose's toast, he hefted out a sauce pan.

"Yes, I get it," Rose said. "Her chromatic obsession again, of course. Red, red and red, right?"

"Nah, my man, you gotta look at the big picture. _iF yOuR WhOlE FuCkInG WoRlD Is rEd, LiKe, HoW Do yOu kNoW?_" Gamzee filled the pan with water before dropping it on a range next to two others he ignored, and set the pan to boil. "I got all kinds of awesome bell peppers from Harley Tower, you have no idea. It's like a motherfucking rainbow on a plate. And cheese. I put it right in the dog because then you can't see it coming and then you're like whoa! Fucking cheese! So awesome."

He had walked over to the fridge as he spoke, pulling out the ingredients and laying them on a cutting board as he mentioned them. He held the cheddar up to his face when he found it, boring his soul deep into its very nature. "Did you know this used to be milk?" he asked. "_FuCkInG. MiRaClEs._"

"You're really putting a lot of effort into this," Rose said, her prying inner psychiatrist latching on to this new information. "You must really care. Why would you say that is?"

"Fuck, I care if anybody comes in here looking like a rain cloud. Saw Kitty slumping around in here the last night with six dead rats and sniffing like someone took her ball on a string, so I lit up some sticks in the corner back here-" he pointed over his shoulder, to the kitchen, " and we had an awesome fucking camp fire. Made her some lemon meringue pie."

"On the... fire?" Rose asked. "I'm making a mental note to tell Sollux that his sprinkler system might not be as fully operational as he's been bragging." When she looked for Gamzee's reaction, she found him staring off into space. "You didn't even realize, did you?"

Gamzee blinked, surprised to see her. "Did you know," he said, leaning over the spit guard and whispering as though he was spilling government secrets. "Did you know that you can make pies out of _anything_?" He gave her a wide-eyed, knowing nod of his head.

Rose nodded as well. It felt safest. "So people just come to you for help?" she asked. Gamzee shook his head.

"Nah, man. Well, maybe. I make them lunch. I mean, I don't want to see anyone all upset or soon everybody's upset, but sometimes you just gotta sit down and... coast. Especially don't like seeing all you pretty ladies with a frown." He set his arms, crossed, and met her eyes. "...So something eatin' you?"

"Me?" Rose couldn't think of anything that was bothering her. And yet...

Gamzee had transformed into the picture of utter seriousness. He even frowned, which Rose had never seen, and his eyes looked in the same direction, which was irregular enough. Seriousness and a sympathetic face on a guy half-covered in flour and his elbow in a puddle of squeezeberry. Rose felt didn't know whether to laugh or to start babbling about Kanaya or Eridan or the mystery woman in the void. "It's nothing," she decide.

He gave a tilt of his head, and when it was clear she had said all she was willing, the corner of his lip turned up a bit and Rose finally gave in to laughter. He grinned a toothy grin and then, screaming like Jack had dropped in uninvited, he leapt into the air when the toast popped up.

"_MoThErFuCk!_" He grabbed at the toast with his bare hands, pinching and retracting until he could yank it onto a plate, and then began to rummage through the bins below for another squeezeberry. Despite finding his demonstration with no trouble, the others seemed more troublesome, and a pile of fruit was dropped onto the counter in no time, leaking a mixed pool of juices. At last he gave a cry of triumph and emerged with his quarry.

"Oh yeah!" Gamzee said as he finished the sandwich. "I just remembered! I wanted to thank you for giving my bro a one-up with Eridan. He's over the moons."

"Tavros?" Rose asked. "I didn't do all that much, really."

"Aw, c'mon, he's been going on about you all week, he's like 'Rose says this' and 'Rose says I should that.'" With her sandwich finished, Gamzee took to the freezer and pulled out a block of hot dogs. "It's nice to have someone that gives a shit, you know?" he asked. Just when Rose was feeling the conversation was getting a touch domestic with the insane clown man, he split the dogs apart with a clever from nowhwere against a poorly underprepared cutting board. Things were normal again. "I feel like we're like practically family over here! You know. Me in diamonds and you right over there in the crazy helpful Human Advice Quadrant."

"Oh!" Rose looked away from the cutting board with a jerk, her surprise overwhelming her initial fear that Gamzee had just removed his pinky and was having a delayed reaction. "You mean... you and Tavros are moirails?"

"_FuCk YeAh!_ I mean, I said to my bro, I said: 'My bro, you and me have been bros for sweeps and now that you're raising your voice a little, everyone wants to be your bro! Except I'm your bro, bro, and you know I've got your motherfucking back to the motherfucking end, bro, and I know you've got mine too 'cause...'"

"Because you're his bro too?" Rose supplied.

"Nah, he's just good with all my wide and varied career anxieties. You know?" Luckily, he did not seem to be looking for an answer. "_LoVe iS A FuCkInG MiRaClE._ That's what I was telling Kitty."

"Shocking," Rose said. Gamzee then began to clean up: he picked up his spreading knife and chucked it straight over his head: it landed like a trick shot in one of dozen drinking glasses that were filling the dishwashing sinks. He then tossed away the cutting board toward the rack with the rest of the dishes, carrying the whole rack off the edge, knocking over a sauce pan coated in congealed grubsauce and leaving only a single empty pepper shaker alive. Finally, he handed Rose her sandwich, which, after it all, was quite good. She had no real analogue for its flavour, a sort of smooth not-citrus, though she would have preferred the fruit straight. Still, no need to pass it up, especially if Terezi was going to drag her around interrogating others, which seemed more certain as anything else, as Rose found her hovering nearby the moment Rose looked up from her sandwich.

Terezi eyed the sandwich as though it were her new suspect. "...I question your commitment to justice, Watson."

Rose pinched at the bridge of her nose. "Of course, Holmes, where are my manners? We must return to the case of the missing stuffed doll!"

Terezi lowered her glasses to look Rose in the eye, so to speak. With all seriousness, she asked: "Rose, would I laugh if someone took _your_ things?"

She reached for Rose's sandwich, and Rose pulled away. "I'm going to pull from the bank of our limited mutual experience and say 'probably yes,'" Rose replied.

"Hey!" Gamzee called from the kitchen. "Can I play?"

Rose sighed. "Terezi just happens to be informing me that this isn't a game."

"Blar, Rose," Terezi scoffed, "Gamzee can play if he wants! Come!" she said, and waved them both after her. "Just so long as he doesn't touch anything! Except an apple. Gamzee, can I have an apple?" Gamzee shrugged and fetched one he had left in the puddle of juices, which Terezi did not object to in the slightest. Terezi then led them back to the table she had been nearly inhaling. "I already have one Watson, Gamzee, but you can be Troll Nigel Bruce."

Gamzee almost squealed, as his eyes lit up, star-struck. Rose had to admit that, no matter the intent of the original performance, Terezi probably had just named one of history's more famous clowns.

"Now..." Terezi said. "To business."

The music jolted: Rose winced, and Gamzee, who had been tottering and bumbling as per character, suddenly stood bold upright and said "Whoa, okay."

"Thank you," Terezi said, though whether she referred to the game or her Watsons, Rose did not know. Their attention seized, she gestured to the table. "Let me fill you in on the night's events," she said. She kept her eyes closed as she reminisced. "I decided to show up in the lab about fifteen hours. I hadn't really been showing my face and I figured it was time," she admitted. "I brought some Scalemates with me to keep me company, and it was just Sollux up at that hour, so it was easy to get settled. I just wanted to see if everyone would leave me alone if I came out, is all, but I got a good game going! Pyralspite was definitely with me then.

"I carried her over into the cafeteria an hour later, nobody else was back yet. You remember, Gamzee!"

"Stepped on me," Gamzee explained.

"Not intentionally!"

"I was asleep on the floor," he explained further.

"Not entirely intentionally!" Terezi said. "There might have been other places I could have stepped! _1 JUST D1DNT_" She then waited until Rose met her eyes to add: "_H3H3H3H3H3H3H3_"

Rose shook her head. "Oh, by all means, do delay the rescue of your helpless dragon."

Terezi glared. "Oh, so now you're business. Fine by me!" Terezi continued her explanation - and as she did, she began to scratch at her palm. Various unique, if sometimes repulsive smells began to waft from her modus, and with a sniff of each, Terezi would shake her head and swipe aside the invisible card to start with the next.

"I was setting up a scene with Pyralspite where she prepared for dinner, knowing one of her rivals would surely murder one of the others during the meal! It's not that hard to plan," Terezi added, "and it's really efficient to let other people do the work for you." She made it clear she was adding these details especially for Rose, who clearly needed the explanation. "But there's a lot to plan ahead about so I was there for a while, writing notes." She pointed out a note pad she had brought out earlier and left on a nearby table, lying open to a page that had been crammed to the margins with varicoloured handwriting. "After that, I was going to go back to the room, play with the others, and have them back in time for dinner."

"Our dinner, or Pyralspite's?"

"Both, duh," Terezi said.

"You were going to run a murder mystery during dinner? Wait," Rose said. "Carry on. I believe it."

"Good!" Finding the smell of overripe blackberries on her newest card, Terezi took a tight grip of the invisible card and swiped her hand in the air: a bag containing fingerprinting equipment took the card's place in the real world. Terezi set to work on the table and surrounds. "I roleplayed for a while-" Gamzee confirmed with a nod, "-and then left went out to the computer lab, where I ran into Karkat and everybody else that had showed up in the hour or two I was gone."

"Oh, right," Rose said. "I remember that. I was talking to Tavros and I heard you laughing at him. Then John started blowing dust all over the place and we all hid in the kitchen."

"Exactly! I barely managed to grab everyone before he blew them away!" Terezi frowned at the results she was getting. "When I left the cafeteria, Pyralspite was still here. But by the time I got back, dinner started..."

Terezi slammed her hand down on the desk. "And she was gone!" At first Rose assumed the slam had been for dramatic effect, but as Terezi returned her kit to her syllabus, it was clear she was angry for fresh reasons. "This is a disaster!" she said, pointing to the spot on the table she had been dusting. Rose leaned closer and looked at the sample she had taken. It looked like a meaningless smudge of marks, an impenetrable mix of Human whorls and Troll shatterglass prints having covered one another time and again over the course of the last month and a half.

"We really have to clean this place," Rose muttered. She wiped a finger on an untouched part of the table. "I mean: we eat here." Rose shook off her hand. "So what's your point, Terezi?"

"My point?" Terezi chuckled, and pointed to the strip of paper she had given Rose earlier. "It's simple," she cooed. "There was only one time my dragon doll could have been stolen: between Egbert's Windy Thing and Gamzee's dinner. Do you remember who was in the room at the time, Rose?" Rose shook her head. She hadn't even stayed in the room for more than a minute, and even then, Tavros had been her priority: she had not really been paying enough attention to even notice the dragon. "Well then it could be anyone!" Terezi proclaimed, "but I'll tell you, my friends, we can do better than that. It's a simple matter of alibis.

"Thank about it," Terezi said. "None of them would steal my dragon if someone else was there to watch them." Rose found it more realistic that someone would gladly turn in someone else if faced down by a loaded Terezi, but so long as that didn't happen, Holmes here was essentially correct. "That means one of them..." The game gave Terezi's proclamation some dramatic silence. "...has no alibi! No one to vouch for them because they were sneaking after my dragon! Whoever has no alibi is our criminal!"

"You seem to be paring this down to a pretty large block of time," Rose said.

"Small time!" Terezi protested. "Only like an hour."

"That's not my point," Rose said. "We all have inventories, it would have only taken a second."

"The only thing I'm paring down here is the difficulty for you amateurs! Geeze!" Terezi clucked her tongue. "That is your note pad," she said, indicating the strip. "This is mine," she said, picking up the notepad from before, which she replaced in her sylladex to the vague smell of cherry antacid. "I'll deal with the detail work, Watson, thanks."

"Well then, let's get started," Rose insisted. "For starters. Where were you?"

To Rose's surprise, Terezi laughed. "Good thinking, Watson. But no. I've got a pretty good alibi! I was with John."

"Seriously?" Rose asked.

"_Y3S,_ why is this surprising?" Terezi shook her head and sighed. "Look, okay, when I said 'I barely managed to grab everyone,' I meant it. I pretty much had to grab dragons out of the air while he blew junk around and made jokes about me being... 'Girl Troll Bill Paxton going after Dorthy.'"

"Oh," Rose said. "_Twister_ jokes."

"Yeah, apparently. Anyway, when I got out I decided to help clean up some."

"You mean he ordered you."

"Maybe I'm a nice person, Rose?" Terezi said, but then immediately laughed. "Nah, I had a question to ask him." When Rose asked what, Terezi simply shrugged. "I dunno. Stuff." When Rose raised an eyebrow just so, she clarified: "Human stuff! My point is, he'll back me up."

"'Stuff,'" Rose echoed.

"Yes, geeze! 'Personal stuff,' fine! I talked, he answered, we went straight to dinner, everyone wins!" She shook her head. "So what's your alibi, nosey?"

"I have no reason to steal your stuffed, and neither does anyone else?"

Terezi tut-tutted this, and patted Rose on the cheek. "That's motive. C'mon, Rose. Alibis. For example: Gamzee was making dinner, that's obvious."

"Is it?" Having thought about it, Rose had realized that the kitchen was almost invisible from the cafeteria. He could have easily grabbed the dragon and ran in the middle of a bad trip. The sectors at this floor of the lab ran on forever, but as a result, didn't connect anywhere else but the computer lab, but that didn't mean he couldn't have made off with the dragons into his own expansive place.

"Don't be stupid, Rose," Terezi said, "you're getting hyper paranoid and that's a rookie mistake. We ate last night, didn't we? This is Gamzee we're talking about here. If he had wandered off, he would have forgotten to come back and not only wouldn't we have eaten, but the whole lab would have burned down. _That's_ an alibi."

But before Rose could complain, Gamzee himself spoke up. "Naw, man, didn't you see me?" He pointed over his shoulder. "I was in and out all the damn time, all over the place! Recipe on my computer. And my good spices ain't here, man, gotta keep them cool and dry! They're in Karkat's." Rose knew from experience that he meant "Karkat's secret room that everyone knows about and can easily access from a secret passage just off the main hub." "And that's just a start! I was at Tavros', because he's got the grubsauce I wanted to dupe. And then I was in the can."

"That's fine, Gamzee," Rose said with a wince. "We don't need to know about stuff that didn't happen here, it's not relevant. Just tell me the grubsauce wasn't on the floor in the bathroom."

"It was on the floor... in its bottle?"

Terezi cut in. "Okay, yeah, you were in and out all the time. So what's your alibi, then?" Gamzee simply shrugged. "Hrm... are you guilty, Troll Nigel Bruce?" Rose could tell that Terezi found this as likely as she did, which was to say, not at all, but Terezi still gave him a warning. "I've got my nose on you. Now! Other Watson!" Rose snapped to attention. "What's your story?"

Rose had prepared her answer by then. "I was plotting with Tavros. We ran out into the transportalizer just after Jade to get away from John, and went to his place. We got back just before dinner. Ran into Feferi and Sollux in the hall, and we all went to the cafeteria and talked. I didn't check your dragon, I'm afraid. Gamzee showed up on our heels just as we were heading in, pretty much from nowhere. He had a shaker with him of, I'm not sure, cayenne...?"

"Blastspice."

"Anyway," Rose continued, "he said it was dinner time. We ran into Eridan in the cafeteria, he started talking to Tavros and that worked out in the end. What can I say?"

"Oh yeah!" Terezi said. "I forgot! You're not a criminal! You're one of those naked, flying Human grubs with their bows and arrows. We're so proud of you, too, aren't we Gamzee?" Gamzee nodded again, like a painted show-puppy on her command. "Mark it down," she ordered, and Rose did just that, marking off herself and Terezi as having alibis and refusing to do the same for Gamzee, just out of principle. "Now c'mon, Watsons," she said, turning away. "If it wasn't us, well... time to find out who it was!"

"Tally-ho!" Gamzee said, marching alongside. Rose followed in their wake. Back in the main lab, Rose found that little had yet changed, and realized that that was probably Terezi's plan. She was operating without Karkat's interference: Rose wondered how long that would last.

Zero seconds.

"Balls," Terezi said, no doubt something she had picked up from Dave. Karkat and the others streamed out of the transportalizer just as Rose crossed into the lab. "Excuse me!" Terezi called to the group, once they had all arrived. "I am here to inform you that as of a few minutes ago, the main lab and every adjoining room is under the control of _TH3 L4W_"

Tavros, who had arrived last and still stood on the platform, panicked, hit it again and disappeared.

"_H4H4H4H4H4!_" Terezi shook her head. "But seriously, we have his alibi already." She shot them all a confident grin, her free hand reaching just below her cane's grip, such that she could easily draw her sword. "...Anyone else want to run?" The rest of the room, which consisted of virtually everyone but the Heroes of Time, Feferi and Tavros, stayed behind. Tavros himself soon returned as well: beckoned it would seem, by Eridan on Trollian.

"Crime scene, huh?" Vriska noted. "What's the big deal? Did you kill Strider or something?"

"That's what I wanna know!" Karkat demanded, stepping forward. He then paused and waved down Vriska. "Not the stupid part - the first part."

"I dunno, Karkat," Terezi said, "you don't know what I'd do to someone who got on my bad side, but somebody in this room's going to find out _R34L SOON_"

Karkat growled at her. "First you're shouting at dinner and now you're tromping around like you own the place. What's your deal? You go nuts while you were hiding in your room? Hit your head on a flush with Egbert?"

"I'm gathering everyone up for interrogations, is my deal," Terezi said. Her voice lost its good humour, but only for a breath before she smiled again. "So everybody sit down! My associates will be with you shortly."

"Stay there!" Karkat ordered - not that anyone had moved, witnesses or associates. "You think you're just gonna walk in her and subvert my authority?"

"All two inches of it, yes," Terezi said, gesturing to his horns.

"Over my dead body," he replied, which Rose felt was in line, and then: "nooksmear," which she felt was not.

Terezi sighed at the insult, and explained: "Somebody stole Pyralspite."

"What, that actually happened? I thought that was your typical raving!" Karkat held his ground.

"'Typical', huh?" Terezi said, eyes lowered behind her glasses.

"Yeah, 'typical!' You're like a baby screechraptor calling out for attention. Have you ever heard yourself? And I might not be able to keep you from shouting into everyone's ears but if you think you're going to hijack the lab, you've got another thing coming." Karkat jabbed her in the collarbone and Terezi slapped his hand away, hard, the sound of bone on bone audible enough for Rose to hear between the two knobby teens. Karkat shook out his hand. "Fuck, how'd you lose your stupid lusus-doll anyways, huh? I thought you'd be more careful with that one."

_Lusus-doll?_ "...Oh." Rose found herself isolated in revelation, left only with Gamzee, who did not at exactly seem like the best ear for her conclusions. _Terezi told me about how she used to read and talk with her lusus. If that doll actually _represented _her lusus for her..._ Rose hadn't thought about it before, what with Terezi's propensity to overplay, but there was a chance that, under it all, she might actually be upset. Rose was not sure what to do with this information, or if it made things better or worse.

For the moment, Terezi was not quite showing either. Sure, she side-eyed Karkat and the emotional blow had been telling, but an idea got into her head, and her smile returned. "Karkat, I wasn't planning on taking over the lab out from under you, you know! After all, you and John _are_ in charge here."

"Oh, here we go!" Karkat said, and he beckoned with his hand. "Lay on the flattery, sister, my shame globes are ready."

"Someone _did_ just steal somebody else's property on your watch, Karkat," Terezi added.

"We were sort of both in the basement," John piped up. "So it wasn't either of our watches!"

"And whose fault is that? Aha!" Terezi got in her first dramatic finger point, and looked like she was glad to have it out of her system.

Karkat, however, had run out of patience. Stepping closer to Terezi against what would have been Rose's good advice, he whispered to her: "It wasn't stolen because there's no reason anyone here would want to take it!" Rose agreed, but knew better than to say it like that. "You _lost_ it and we both know it, you megalomaniacal, disorganized clusterfuck!"

"No, no one had any reason to steal it... unless they're my enemy." Karkat grunted. "I'll make it worth your while," she offered instead. "If you're so sure my Pyralspite wasn't stolen, why not prove it... _1N COURT?_"

"Oh... dear... sweet Troll Morgan Freeman, we've lost her." Karkat talked loud and slow. "_Terezi!_" he called. "This is going to hurt when you realize you forgot. And then? I'm going to laugh, but _Troll courts do not work that way._ Nobody stands up against the prosecutor, remember? I blame the Humans," Karkat said to John. "I really do. It's sad."

Terezi reached out with her cane and hooked Karkat on the shoulder by the grip. He swatted it away much as she had his arm, but she was not perturbed. "_1T DO3S 1F TH3 P3RSON 4G41NST ME 1S B3H1ND TH3 B3NCH_"

"...Wait a minute," Karkat lowered his eyes. "Are you trying to draw me into your manic fantasy here? Because that doesn't make any sense. What do I get out of this?"

Terezi played insulted. "I figured you'd be into it!"

"Why in this tin-canned claustrophobic hell we live in would I want to play one of your games?" Karkat demanded.

"I dunno," Eridan said, just behind him. "Sort of sounds like what you two would've done on a first date."

Karkat steamed up, but before he could let Eridan have it, Terezi interrupted. "So whaddya say, Karkat?" she asked. "We've just got to fill this out," she said, passing Karkat another of the strips of paper like she had given Rose. He side-eyed it, and then held it up, like Rose had come to expect from someone using their modus. A glowing light appeared around his hand, and from it popped a dozen cartoon bees, which came to collect the sheet.

"How're they treating you, KK?" Sollux asked, without even looking up.

"Like a lowblooded temp due to be culled next perigree, so they've just got to put up with me a little while longer." As Karkat grumbled, the bees flew into a large rectangular hive that appeared from nowhere, and they filed the paper among it. Rose had to admit they were quite slow about it. In between the layers of the hive, Rose could spot a half dozen things sticking through, jammed in half-heartedly and left behind, including a rumbled-up shirt and some half-eaten sandwich, all drenched in purple honey. The whole hive disappeared a few months later.

Karkat then pointed down at the ground, just behind the couch. "Court starts in an hour, right here."

"Of course, Your Tyranny," Terezi said, and chuckled. "So, Karkat. Where were you?"

"I was in the cafeteria with the rest of the chumps," Karkat said, but "ah!" he added when Sollux seemed about to speak up. "Yes, yes I did leave. I was in the pantry, alchemizing a new remote for the shit DVD player. Which, as you will recall, did not fucking work. Then I come out and _bam!_, Gamzee's there saying he's done the meal. Fucking miracles." Terezi seemed satisfied with that.

"So are we doing this?" Rose asked her Holmes.

"Oh, we're doing this," Terezi said, not breaking her face-off with Karkat.

"Okay," Rose said, stepping forward to speak to the crowd. "Look, I know we're all in favour of some good-natured nonsense from time to time, but I don't want to be dragged around the room any more than any of you want to be questioned. Did anyone actually see Terezi's doll: _specifically yesterday?_"

The answers Rose got were the sort she perhaps should have expected.

"Nah."

"_i HAVEN'T REALLY SEEN IT SINCE I WAS ON LOTAF, rEALLY,_"

"_yeah, iit wa2 over at the couch, wa2n't iit?_"

"_Im Fairly Certain I Saw It On A Table In The Cafeteria_"

"_of course i saww it wwith its big red eyes staring straight through to my heart. fuck._"

"Was it white-white or was it more of a white-green?"

"_I'll nev8r tell! Never! Neverrrrrrrr!_"

"Tsk," Terezi said, as she hooked Rose's shoulder with her dragon-cane. "Witnesses. You'll learn, dear Watson, that they perform much better under a regimen of interrogation, evidence, and drubbings."

"Sweet," Gamzee said, and he followed after Terezi as she walked toward Jade, Kanaya and, as it happened, Nepeta on the couch.

"No drubbings!" Rose ordered before they got too far ahead.

"Some drubbings!" Terezi said, presumably as compromise.

"Fifty-eight minutes of drubbings," Karkat muttered.

Rose stopped to level with him. "You know, if I didn't know any better, I'd think you were an idiot, egging her on."

"You and me both, sister," Karkat said.

"Instead, you're an idiot letting _yourself_ be egged on." Karkat raised an eyebrow. "Very interesting," Rose observed, and followed after others, leaving Karkat's scowl and barked reprisal behind.

As Rose approached the couch, she found Terezi overlooking Team Green and not actually asking them any questions. By the looks of things, they had accepted the arragnement as well, and were back to work on their computers. Nepeta had her tablet out and was doodling Karkat with a tiny gavel and a powdered wig. The Squiddles had been turned off.

Jade glanced down at Nepeta's pad. "You gonna leave us to go roleplay, Nepeta?"

Nepeta squinted at her drawing as she did some detail work. "Hmm... no," she said, and that was that. Jade met Rose's eyes in confusion, having clearly never seen Nepeta reject a chance to roleplay at all, nevermind so fast, but Rose felt she understood. She could not help but note how Nepeta kept her head down around Terezi, and Terezi returned her the same favour, acting as though one another did not exist. It was much the same way Terezi had been treating Dave the few times Rose had seen her in the past few days. If Terezi and Karkat had not been so entrenched and naturally confrontational, Rose imagined the relationship might have slipped quietly onto the same rails. Upset at the thought, Rose side-eyed Terezi, and noticed that she seemed to be listening intently to the crowd as it slowly clued in that it was time to disperse. Terezi kept still, at least until Vriska started to move.

Rose looked her directly in the eyes. "_No,_" she insisted.

"Why not?" Terezi said with a chuckle. "It's like I told Karkat. Who'd have stolen my doll except someone who hates me?"

Rose crossed her arms. "I'm not going to waste time here if this is just about is you trying to stick your cane up Vriska's nose."

"_H4H4H4H4! V1V1D,_ but no. I'm not going to indulge your ashen crush on Vriska, Rose. Gamzee, you do it."

"Indulge Rose's ashen crush on Vriska?" he asked.

"My what?" Rose glared after Terezi. "No."

"No," Terezi instructed Gamzee. "Stick my cane up her nose." She held it up to him. Vriska, overhearing, changed her path from her own computer to the one that would normally be Terezi's, perhaps because it was furthest away.

Rose grabbed Gamzee's arm to stop him from taking the cane. He stared down at her hand in confusion. "Holmes, old chum," he said to Terezi. "I think Watson... uh... I think I just stopped myself."

Rose glared after Terezi as Gamzee tugged his hand. Seeing her cane was not needed, Terezi approached the couch again and rapped her cane-tip against the back. "Knock-knock, Miss Maryam."

"Oh, detectimpaler, I didn't see you there," Kanaya said, and she mimed opening a door in the couch. "Come in. Don't mind my purrbeast. She'll only attack on command." Nepeta giggled, though she kept her head down.

Terezi gestured to Rose, leading her to ask the first questions. "So, uh, Miss Maryam..." Rose said. "Where were _you_ between the hours of... uh... Hurricane Egbert and Dinner o'clock?"

"I see you use different terms down at the butchery-precinct, patrolthug," Kanaya said, all without looking up from her screen, though she smiled. "I was about."

"About?" Terezi sniffed the air as if for the stank of deceit. "Sounds awfully suspicious to me."

"If you're asking for my alibi: Gamzee was with me. We were in dark-lit back chambers, doing unspeakable things together involving knives that I'm sure the precinct would be glad to know about, but I will never admit," Kanaya said.

"She was washing my dishes, yo," Gamzee explained, having calmed down in Rose's grip, though she did not immediately release him. "Roasting pans, utensils, I guess I make a bit of a mess." He laughed. Kanaya shuddered. "Don't know what I'd have done without her."

"Kanaya..." Nepeta said from where she lay, across the two girls. "I don't know how to tell you this, but you could just alchemize new pots and pans, you know."

Kanaya's hand, mid-way to a virtual window, froze in place and then trembled with otherwise neatly contained rage. "Yes. Yes, I'm aware of our official resource-wasting policies," she said through gritted teeth. "_I Decided It Would Be A Better Way To Spend Our Resources If I Countered All Of Gamzees Previous Messes As He Cooked The Cluckbeast_. Which stretched back weeks, might I add. _Youre Welcome_"

"Aha!" cried Terezi. "Aid! Hatred! _Tidy_ privacy! An affair for the books. I just knew you were a lady killer, Stupid Watson," Terezi said to Gamzee.

"What did I do?" he asked.

Terezi did not necessarily answer him. "We've gone from no drama to three quadrants in one! Shameful! Regular Watson, write all this down." She then laid her hand gently on Rose's shoulder, and whispered: "Between your tears."

Rose raised an eyebrow, but put an X next to Kanaya's name. Rose considered hitting Karkat as well, since Kanaya would have seen him go to the alchemiter, but noted that she had to find one of the "chumps" he had been spending time with in the cafeteria first. This was harder work than she had expected. As Rose double-checked her marks, she could not help but be reminded of Vriska, just below Terezi's mark. Rose's mind had been on keeping the ex-Scourge Sisters apart if possible, and she decided now that if she was able to head this off, she could prevent Terezi doing any damage later.

"Well this is all too much drama for me," Rose said. "I'll continue the investigation somewhere that isn't polluted with the _stink of treachery_, I think."

"I regret nothing!" Kanaya called back in monotone.

Rose took a full step away before the next caused her to fall flat on her face. Terezi unhooked her dragon cane grip from behind Roseﾒs ankle and stepped up to her side, sliding down the cane to rest just above her face and leer down.

"I know what you're doing, Rose," she said.

"And you're going to prove it by tripping me," Rose observed, rubbing the sore palms of her hands.

"_Y3S_" Terezi smiled. It was indeed most of what Rose could see from her, as she blocked off the light, leaving her a silhouette of red glasses and teeth. "You're trying to keep me away from Vriska. You're looking out for your own." Terezi pointed to the far corner, where Rose noted that Vriska was sitting not far from Eridan, who hovering by her seat next to Tavros. Terezi's point was well received.

"If this is about Eridan's poorly-planned auspistice idea-" Rose started.

"Not really," Terezi muttered, her voice a low cackle when she talked softly, just by nature. "But look at it this way. You don't like Vriska, right?" Rose could think of quite a few things she didn't like, but wasn't going to walk into that trap. Terezi nodded: "Right, but not enough to mediate her. Oh no. Well: _I_ donﾒt like her either, even worse! But not enough to make a move there, either. John says you don't like Eridan," Terezi added then, matter-of-factly.

"I... John?" Rose looked for her friend among the crowd, and found him having settled in on Karkat's computer next to Vriska, chatting happily with her and Eridan.

Terezi put on an air of innocence. "That's what he said you said! Even got rid of Eridan with Tavros." Terezi tightened her grip about her staff. "Good move, Rose. Very good." Rose rolled her eyes and then tried to get to her feet, but Terezi clapped a hand on her shoulder once Rose level with her. "So look at us, Rose. Two girls that don't like Vriska, but don't _hate_ her... right? Oh, no, not at all. But if she took my lusus-doll?" Terezi actually growled to say "doll", and Rose could not help but feel that if she were much older, the word would have echoed like it did from the moulting Trolls. "Well, then!" Terezi pulled her sword half an inch from its sheath. "...I think I might more than 'not like' her."

"Terezi, if you dare attack someone else in this lab..." Rose said, and she reached out to put the sword away. But to her surprise, Terezi grinned wide and put the sword away on her own.

"Oh, no," Terezi said. "Not ashen for _Eridan_ at all." Terezi pushed Rose's hands back so that she could stand. Rose followed. "Sorry, Rose," Terezi said, "but if you're going to try to mediate me from the person who stole my doll? Platonically or otherwise?" she added, before Rose could comment. "You're going to need good evidence. So you still want to interrogate Vriska? A lot riding on it!" She then reached up and signed to her eyes, then her nose, and then jabbed Rose with the same finger. _I'm smelling you._ Cute.

"Like I could get rid of you," Rose muttered as she decided that was her cue to leave. She cast glances over her shoulder as she went, and found Terezi tracking her every move. Finally she gave in and approached Vriska, who was fighting with Eridan, as per usual.

"What's going on, Vriska?" Rose interrupted.

Vriska did not look happy to see her, but at least this time it didn't seem personal. Given the circumstances, Rose was glad for that. "Oh, nothing," she said. "Eridan's just given me a fucking digital parasite, is all. The usual!"

"That's fuckin' slander!"

"And what's happening on the computer?" Rose asked. It was too easy, she had to take it. In the distance, Terezi laughed.

"Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha," Vriska monotoned. "Funny today, are we? Terezi send you over to make a fool out of me before she shows up?"

_You're doing that well enough on your-_ "Please stop lobbing me low balls," Rose said. "It's insulting to both of us."

Vriska gave Rose a gesture she had learned meant "Jam your horn up your nook." John, who was still overlooking the fight, gave Rose a sympathy wince.

Rose brushed them both off with a wave of her hand. "Eridan, how do you manage to get a virus onto an alien, in-game computer?"

"I'm telling you, I fucking didn't!" he protested. "Okay: I was here last night. I don't have a computer of my own, you'll remember pretty well, I bet!"

"Alchemize your own!" Vriska and Rose answered together. John was less terse with him but had the same advice.

"It's too much resources!" he complained. "I'm not going to waste everyone's hard-earned grist just because you all think we need sixteen supercomputers instead of fifteen."

"But we'll have the grist back in a few hours!" John pointed out, referring to Equius and Sollux's grist generator in the basement.

"But what if we need it first?" he complained. "Damn waste, is what it is. You've all gotta take a page outta me and Kan's book, that's what you've gotta do."

"Look," Rose said, more to cut him off than anything. "This discussion on in-game economy and ecology is just as fascinating as it is a waste of everyone's time." She pulled out the sheet of paper. "Just tell me where you were yesterday after John started cleaning."

"Smuggling viruses," Vriska muttered.

"Harpy," Eridan whispered back, before Tavros squeezed his hand and shut him up tight and violet.  
>"Let's start with you, Vriska," Rose said, irritated.<p>

"What, do I have to justify myself to the angry walking-stick now?" Vriska asked.

"Did you steal her doll?" Rose asked.

"No."

"Do you realize she's going to hit you for it if she doesn't find another suspect?" Rose asked next.

Vriska held up a fist and flicked out her thumb - one of the Flourite Octet popped into existence was flicked into the air. "Let's see her reach me first."

Rose narrowed her eyes at Vriska, and then flipped the sheet of paper to write on the back. "'Subject actually _wants_ to engage hate-rival. Perhaps not as platonic as I thought. Quadrant still fascinating; terrifying; stupid.'"

Vriska levelled her die at Rose's head. Rose was not honestly sure if it could work on its own but wasn't looking forward to finding out. "What'd you just say?"

"Oh, nothing," Rose said. "So what is your alibi?"

"For when? John started cleaning when? I wasn't there, remember? And when till?" Vriska asked. "Oh, don't look surprised, I know how she works."

"Just before the meal," Rose said. "About an hour."

"Fuck, I was barely at dinner at all," Vriska said, looking relieved. "I mean, I was going to make dinner at my kitchen," she clarified. Rose knew what she meant; each of the expansive sectors had their own kitchen, with the Humans' just outside their rooms. Gamzee's was just closest and largest. "But then Eridan trolled me and I figured... why not?"

"You were still at your computer?" Rose asked Eridan.

"Well not the whole time, but yeah, and I was getting winged with fuckin' chairs and shit," he said, rubbing his head.

John piped out about then. "That only happened once!" To Rose, he explained: "Jade did tell me to leave her stuff alone and he _was_ right here."

"It's not like people let me on their computers all the time," Eridan complained. "Now that Ter's back, I'm never gonna see one again, I bet."

"Aw, you can use mine," Tavros offered.

Eridan, apparently still easily surprised by honest and willing generous offers from a caring matesprit, was almost wide-eyed. Vriska gagged.

"You said you left," Rose confirmed with Eridan. "Where did you go?"

"Just for a minute," Eridan admitted. "Jerky run," he explained. "From the old fridge, just behind the counters in the caf?" To explain, he held up a hand, and to Rose's surprise, a bottle leapt out of nowhere and into his grip. Like a ship in that bottle, Rose could make out three remaining strips of somethingbeast-jerky ready for consumption. Eridan smashed the bottle, and Rose watched the glass disintegrate as he took out the strips, offering one to Tavros, one for himself, and a third to Rose, which she refused. Not humouring the idea of giving it to Vriska for a moment, he called out a new bottle, which snapped into existence around the jerky with almost louder glass noises than the original broken bottle. It then vanished back into Eridan's inventory. "After that, I turn around and find you all in there with Gamzee there talking about how dinner's done and I don't need a snack." He flourished his piece of jerky like a wand. "So here we are."

"And on the way, he stole the dragon!" Vriska cut in. "Even though he has no reason to do it and it's of no value to anyone! It makes perfect sense!"

"I'm not done with you," Rose said. "When _did_ you get to the cafeteria?"

Vriska shrugged. "Eight minutes in?"

"So what you're saying is... you don't know," Rose guessed. Vriska scowled, but behind her, John nodded his head. Rose sighed and set about erasing the half of an X she had already marked down. "That wouldn't count even if I didn't have a shark-lawyer sniffing down my neck. Is that really all you have?"

"You don't like my alibi?" Vriska said. She then made a not exactly polite suggestion of what Rose could do with it.

"Right," Rose sighed. "John, can I bother you?" she asked, and led him toward Jade's corner office.

"Why the privacy?" he asked at a whisper.

"Because of what I'm going to ask, as much for my health as my reputation," Rose clarified, indicating Terezi. Rose could not quite hear Jade and Nepeta's conversation from this side of the room, and though her co-seer was closer than that, she would have to hope it was far enough. "You were talking to Vriska last night, after the movie."

"Oh," John said, and his face fell, which Rose did not take as a good sign. "Yeah, she was... she was pissed. We went to her room, it's actually, like, right over there," John said, pointing to the disused door on the west wall. "It wasn't easy to get much out of her. Vriska's sort of like..." he searched for words, and then selected: "she's gotta blow off steam before she'll tell you what's going on. Well, if she doesn't try to fix it herself, first."

"Damn," Rose said. "I'm worried Terezi might... _do_ something, and if Vriska isn't as calm as possible, well..."

"Is she serious about this?" John asked.

"I think she might be," Rose admitted. "But it's hard to tell with her, too. I mean, I don't actually know her like I do Kanaya or you know Vriska." Rose sighed. "...Actually, she said she was talking to you yesterday. That honestly makes us about even, one conversation each out-of-game."

"Well, you've been Watson for a little while," John said as a joke. "But yeah. She was actually asking about you."

"I was afraid of that," Rose admitted. "Why?"

"Well..." John thought about it. "First I tried to tell her about Bill Paxton, and his literal rise to stardom in _Apollo 13_." And then he chuckled.

"Please, spare me," Rose said. She and John were huddled close together for silence and it was clear Terezi was growing suspicious. She started to make her way to the other side of the room, but was interrupted by Karkat. "Just cut to it."

"She was asking about you rejecting Eridan and Vriska, I think? I mean, she was going about it really cryptically but I figured that's pretty much how she's always been." John did not even seem to remember how that kind of behaviour had gotten an alternate self of his killed. "Then she was just asking some questions about you. Asked Jade some too. She showed up just before dinner to set up cushions. I don't know what she was getting at, really but I think..." John noticed at the same time as Rose that Terezi had broken from Karkat. "I think she wanted to know why you talked to her after she broke up with Dave."

"Huh? But... why?" Rose dropped the level of her voice. "I don't know, she was upset!"

"I know!" John agreed. "But I think..." Terezi was too close now, but Vriska provided a speaking opportunity when she decided to shout insults at her. "I don't think the Trolls are used to people caring about them for no reason like that? Even a little. I mean, no reason as far as Trolls go?"

"It... it wasn't for no reason, I just didn't want her to..." But Rose followed his point. And just in time, too, as Terezi once again clapped an arm on her shoulder. Terezi's new insistence on physical contact was really getting annoying fast.

"I figured," she said, in a low voice, "that if you were going so far to reach out to me... I could stand to learn a few things about you. After all..." Rose looked up at her, confused. "...what has not understanding Humans gotten me so far?" She tapped her cane twice, as if to remind Rose what was inside it, and more importantly, how she had come by it.

And then she said: "We're done," and nothing could have sounded more ominous. "I just told Karkat. The trial starts as soon as we're ready."

"But..." John looked to Karkat, who was already shouting directions to the others to begin moving furniture. "But it's only been ten minutes."

"John," Terezi said, "that's because you're just not used to working with a master detective, and her useful..." she patted down hard on Rose's shoulder again, "useful assistant. Watson!" she said with one last, hard pat. "Come on. We approach... _TH3 F1N4L CURT41N!_" Terezi took a deep breath, refreshed. "And who knows what we'll find behind it? _H3H3H3H3H3H4_"

Before Rose could speak up again, Terezi interrupted: "Me, Rose. Victorious me. But hey," she said, tapping her cane to her temple, "you can be victorious too! As a few more question and you'll know everything I do by now! Think it oooooooover!" Rose hoped, dearly, that that wasn't a hint. "Take your time! Think it through. We won't start unless you're ready, but once you're past the break, the curtain will rise and the show... _W1LL 3ND_"

Rose was not in the mood for those theatrics. Terezi might want to close the case, but Rose was not going to give up without a fight. She got to her feet and interviewed the others as best she could, but got little out of them.

"What can you tell me about Eridan?" Rose asked at one point. "He says he had to go get some jerky? This is his alibi. It sounds even stupider now that I'm saying it."

"Well, we weren't exactly making eye contact," Sollux said. "Especially FF. We were in the hallway about then, going to see if John was done. KK figured there was no point, so he bailed on us to fuck up some electronics, which was good because if he had come with us, Ampora would have stuck around to talk to him. Not that he didn't try to have this incredibly awkward conversation with us. You and Nitram showed up right about then, and then Gamzee and we went in to eat. I think Ampora was still by the old fridge by then, so that's where he must have gone?"

"You were in the cafeteria most of the time," Rose said, as much to confirm as anything. He nodded. "Even if you weren't watching the dragon itself, would you say it was possible for Gamzee to steal it at any point?" Rose asked.

"No, definitely not," Sollux confirmed at last. "He's a screwball but he goes from one of his tangles to another in straight lines."

"Could Feferi and Karkat back you up on that?"

"Sure," he said, and got Feferi to do so over Trollian. As he did, he laughed. "Ehehehehe, you just don't get in Gamzee's way when he's working, he's all business. I'm glad he never turned out like a _real_ Subjugglator." Soon she had Feferi's confirmation, and Rose marked Gamzee off on her sheet. It was the only solid information she managed to find.

As Rose worked, the room began to transform under Karkat's careful direction, from computer lab to computer lab hastily arranged into the shape of a courtroom. Most of the Trolls lifted or cleaned, while Gamzee did the odd bit of serious reconstruction, strutting about, whistling _I've Been Working on the Railroad_ and hefting a meat tenderizer. Sure enough, Rose made sure not to get in his way while he was working. Despite Rose's frantic efforts, she was soon called in by Karkat for Terezi's final curtain. Throughout it all, Terezi stayed as she was by Jade's office, taking in the whole scene as the others brought her stage to life before her.

* * *

><p>DAY 45, HOUR 9<br>ECTOBIOLOGY LABORATORY  
>COURTROOM NO. 1<p>

Rose was impressed. The court had been cleaned and neatly arranged, with the audience all sitting in chairs in a gallery to one side; before them, an area had been prepared for Terezi and her team with tape, and when instructed/grabbed, Rose joined her there. Karkat had even prepared a place opposite the prosecutor for "the guilty," as the Trolls put it, though it remained unoccupied. Rose was not sure who was more responsible for the outright _production_ the whole trial was becoming: Terezi, Karkat, or everyone else, who wanted to watch a show. As the others had worked, Dave and Aradia had arrived, the latter somewhat scorched, the former looking too peppy and clean to have been anything but recently healed. John filled them in fast, and Dave had no more than waved to Rose before he left. Aradia stayed.

Soon they were ready. Karkat presided standing against the back of the couch, and the entire court lay out before him, with the prosecutor standing to his right, grinning like an idiot. John approached the bench informally before things began.

"Do you really think this is such a good idea?" he asked Karkat, as he gave him one of his smaller hammers for a gavel. Rose had provided her former doorstop for him to use as a sound block. "I mean, if it were me, I wouldn't even know what to say to the person who did it!"

"What's to say?" Karkat replied. "They give back Terezi's precious lusus-doll, say they're sorry, and we leave them because she'll probably hit them with her cane before the week's out and she might as well do it now. Everything comes up even."

Terezi made her opening statement, and made absolutely sure that everyone in the room knew exactly what had happened and when, and reminded them of what had been happening at the time. At some point during her speech, Terezi switched her modus. The new one showed off the item she was talking about above in a hologram just before her, which was irritating as she paced. It showed things that were in her inventory, like the scalemates she still had on-hand, but also things that weren't, like Pyralspite or a copy of _Twister_; and things that never could be in her inventory, like a shot of the scene of the crime. It never seemed to retrieve much of anything, but it made for good theatre, if petty theft in any way qualified as a basis for good theatre, however beloved the stolen item.

"And as I said to my assistant..." Terezi said, indicating Rose, "...whoever does not have an alibi for that time... is the criminal."

"Uh-huh." They were Karkat's first words since the start of the trial. He looked far less pleased by the goings on than every other person in the lab. "And with that completely redundant introduction behind us, how about you just lay it out and let us get this over with?"

"I would be happy to, Your Tyranny." She held a hand out palm-up toward Karkat and said: "Take that." Her modus responded and slipped out Rose's sheet of paper, which lofted gently into Karkat's hand. "What you see there is my assistant's take on the stories we heard during our investigation."

Karkat scanned the sheet, and then glared at Terezi, Rose and Gamzee with his finger up his nose to say: "This sheet is half blank!"

Terezi gasped. "Rose!"

"Oh, yes, very surprising," Rose said, "considering you took it from me and I told you the investigation wasn't finished."

Terezi continued to click her tongue, and went over to Karkat to retrieve the sheet. "Watson, Watson," she said to Rose. "Let me fill this in, shall I?"

"Sure," Karkat said, "I don't find improvised bullshit any more a waste of my time than rehearsed."

Terezi smiled to him. "Now, let's see. My companions and I all confirmed our alibis when we started, like good Troll law enforcers," she said with a nod to Rose. "I was with John."

"Uh-huh!" John said from the gallery.

"...Rose was with Tavros, so that's both."

"_tHAT IS, aLSO CORRECT,_"

"And Gamzee, of course, was making our delicious cluckbeast in grubsauce, and the fact that it's done and he didn't walk off should be proof enough for anyone, I think?" Karkat waved that through, in spite of Rose's protests. "The rest is pretty simple. Your Tyranny is marked off, very good. Feferi and Sollux were with Karkat, Rose or Tavros at any given moment. And that's where my Watson cuts off." More tongue clicking. "You do any better there, Gamzee?"

"I'm pretty sure that, like, I didn't do it?" Gamzee said.

"The one person I didn't think could confirm that," Terezi said, and continued before Gamzee could catch on. "But true all the same. But come on, Rose. Pencil?" she asked Rose, as it was apparent she could not take things out of her sylladex at her leisure. Rose passed one over. "For starters, Dave and Aradia weren't around all day. Busy as ever," she said, and said no more in front of the crowd, though Karkat looked primed to spring if she did. It must have been news to him that she knew, but her choice of words made it obvious for all that shared in the Time Conspiracy: even Aradia looked up in what might have been surprise.

"Now as I recall," Terezi said, her eyes firm on the paper, "Equius went off to talk to Aradia and didn't return either." She checked him off, and Rose felt kind of silly for not remembering immediately. Terezi rubbed it in with her next point. "Nepeta went with him, but she didn't come back until we were eating our meal. Isn't that right?"

That seemed to be an inquiry, so Nepeta said: "You learn to chew fast in the wild before something bigger comes along."

"Bigger or craftier," Terezi quipped. "Let's see. Scarlett was out, Brunette was ogling Mustard in the cafeteria..."

"_tHAT IS, CORRECT, bUT ALSO MALICIOUS SLANDER, aT THE SAME TIME,_"

"...Grey's good, Green was late, Laurel was doing dishes, Meadow-Brook innocent and hunting... _Peacock_." Terezi turned slowly toward Vriska, who braced herself in challenge.

Karkat sighed. "And we come to our predictable twist."

"...who didn't do it!" Rose was as surprised to hear herself speak as anyone, yet she continued, searching her memory for the thorn sticking in her conscience. "...Because she has the best witness of all. You, Terezi." Rose was not sure how to read Terezi's face. At the moment, the difference between a grin and a sneer could be the difference between innocence and open violence, perhaps directed at Rose this time. "She had to have come into the computer lab to get to the kitchen, because sectors on this floor only connect to this room. Vriska's is right over there, right? That means it's on this floor." She pointed to the adjoining door, and John nodded.

"You were talking to John," Rose continued to Terezi, "and you said that after that, you went straight to dinner. You never mentioned Vriska, and while that doesn't mean you didn't see her, but I bet you didn't! If Vriska had come out at any point during that conversation, you would have slammed shut like a clam... uh... beast." In the distance, Feferi wobbled her hand to say "sort of." "...My point is, she didn't go past you, so she must have come out of her room after you were done your talk: at the start of dinner."

Terezi walked up to Rose and patted her on the cheek. "My Watson's all growing into her boots, isn't she?"

"You knew?" Vriska said from the gallery.

"Well yeah!" Terezi said. "Like she said: I was right there."

"So why all this glaring at me?"

Terezi threw up her hands. "So I could say 'but it wasn't her Aha!' _4ND 3V3RYON3 1S SURPR1S3D!_ But instead, everyone is surprised by Rose being competent, aren't they Watson?"

"I know I am," Vriska said.

"Gallant to the end, Serket," Rose replied.

"Hey! Hey!" Karkat slammed his gavel. "Move it on!"

"Right, right," Terezi said. "Peacock, Azure in the basement, Plum in the kitchen, Orchid..." Terezi tapped the sheet. "Eridan was in the lab most of the time, but also went to the cafeteria. The only witnesses at that time were in the entrance hall... where you can't see the dragon! No alibi!" Terezi pointed at him dramatically with her pencil, and Eridan flinched, but she backed off almost at once. "...but he also didn't do it. Dinner started right after, and he wasn't caught holding it. It's not hidden in the cafeteria, we've searched it, and there was enough room in the fridge for Gamzee to pack it full of new things!"

Karkat shrugged. "What about his modus?"

"_His_ modus?" Terezi asked. Eridan: jerky," she requested, holding out her hand. Eridan was confused, but obliged, summoning the bottle and smashing it. Gingerly, he handed over the strip of meat. "When Eridan went to the fridge, and no one could see him, Rose and Tavros had just joined Sollux and Feferi, and Rose, I know, has a very special talent, don't you Rose?" Rose was not sure what she meant, but Terezi returned the jerky to Eridan. "Put it back," she ordered, and Eridan held up the jerky until a bottle snapped into existence around it, once more with the awful clash of glass about it.

"Rose?" Terezi asked. "You didn't see Eridan steal my dragon into his modus. Did you _hear_ it?"

Rose smiled. "No ma'am."

Terezi smiled back and marked off Eridan on her sheet. "Now... Lavender was with Mustard in the cafeteria like I just said, Periwinkle was talking movies in the lab, Rose is clean, Cardinal flew away..."

"I admit, it was me!" Jade shouted. "I'm an out of control, sticky-fingered plushie stealer! And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for these darn kids and their goat!"

"Oh, sit down!" Terezi complained. "You were fetching pillows and blankets, and you spent the rest of the time arranging them."

"Well yeah," Jade said. "But seriously, Terezi. I'm sorry your dragon's missing, but obviously no one stole it. You just accounted for everyone!"

"No way, sis." It was Gamzee. He shook his head gravely to Jade. "My legal pal ain't half done. I know you can't hear it, but I'm a motherfucking Bard of... uh... something..." Actually, now that she thought of it, Rose had never heard what Gamzee's element was. He rapped his forehead. "My point is: _I'M OnE WiTh wIcKeD RhYtHm, YoU DiG?_ And something just got mad tense up in here." Rose could dig, the game had shifted over to a Suspense theme. "But that just makes me feel... you know? Like she's gonna turn it all about."

"Ooh," said Terezi, her gleaming teeth more like the hunter than the hunted. "Nice choice of words"

"He's right," said Karkat, begrudging. "She said the list was based on everyone's stories. She never said the stories were true. This is where she swings her stupid stick around and accuses anyone and everyone of being a liar."

Terezi smiled, and in the gallery, Sollux spoke up to say, "You know, KK, you're just proving Ampora's point about the first date thing, with you knowing exactly how this is supposed to go."

Karkat waved his gavel. "The witness will shut up before I trepan him with his candy-corn crown. Prosecutor: if you waste my time..."

"Mate in two, Your Tyranny," Terezi promised. She held up a hand, and again whispered: "Take that."

An MP3 player of sorts, built with a hand grip, appeared in Terezi's hand. Terezi pressed the buttons on the grip blind, and the room soon filled with multiple vocal tracks. Rose heard Jade's voice, her own, Gamzee's and Terezi's as well, and more. Terezi had been taping every single one of their interrogations, and was now playing them all at once, on top of one another.

"...When I left the cafeteria, Pyralspite was still here..."

"Don't mind my purrbeast..."

"...make a fool out of me before she shows up?"

Rose and the others listened to the jumble, confused and unsure as to what Terezi was even trying to accomplish. Terezi turned to Rose. "Did you catch it?" Rose shook her head. Terezi pressed a few buttons, and the clips played again. Terezi set both of her hands, the recorder included, on the haft of her cane.

"I don't have a computer of my own..."

"You and Nitram showed up right about then..."

"I was in the pantry, alchemizing a new remote..."

"_I Decided It Would Be A Better Way To Spend Our Resources If I Countered All Of Gamzees Previous Messes As He Cooked The Cluckbeast_"

And then Terezi moved. Terezi swept up her cane toward the gallery, and shouted "_OBJ3CT1ON_" and she had so dearly been waiting to say. From her sylladex, a collection of hologram pots and pans shot out, weaponized, and the crowd ducked them as they collided harmlessly with the wall. When everyone was standing back where they had begun, however warily, Terezi's cane remained levelled at Kanaya.

"What... the... hell!" Kanaya protested.

"Oh, c'mon!" Terezi laughed. "Imagine if they had been evidence I actually had on me! Imagine if they had been real!"

"_I was!_" Kanaya said. Her fingers clutched about a nickel apart, ready to grasp a tube of lipstick if necessary.

"Miss Maryam," Terezi said, calm as ever. "I think all we have here is a simple misunderstanding."

"Was it the part where you thought she was a bullseye?" Rose complained from behind.

"No, that was on purpose," Terezi confirmed. The lipstick came out, Terezi ignored it. "You said you countered 'all of Gamzee's previous messes while he cooked the chicken.'"

Kanaya brushed herself off. The lipstick remained in hand. "That's right...?"

"So you didn't clean up any of the dishes from the meal itself?"

Kanaya took to examining one of the holograms that had been flung at her. "...That's correct..."

"Then why are there only dishes in the cafeteria kitchen for the _sauce_?"

"Ah!" Kanaya dropped the hologram in her surprise. "But... I..."

"Because I'm fairly sure we ate cluckbeast last night..."

Karkat stood up. "Terezi, are you accusing Kanaya of stealing your doll because there's not enough poultry nearby?"

"Stealing? No!" Terezi shook her head. "What part of 'Mate in two' don't you understand? This just changes something important."

Kanaya did not seem particularly convinced as she squirmed in place, and Karkat pressed his point. "So what? What does it change? The time? Their alibi?"

"_Her_ location, Your Tyranny. I think..." Terezi smiled up at Kanaya, which Rose did not think would reassure anyone. "...I really do think that we've had a little miscommunication." She reached up and tapped Kanaya on the nose with each syllable of "miscommunication." Speaking again to the crowd, but looking straight into Kanaya's eyes, she said: "I believe you told us that you were with Gamzee in the kitchen, is that right?"

"_Y-Yes..._." Kanaya stammered, hackles up.

"...Which one?"

Kanaya was taken aback. "Which..."

"Exactly." Terezi turned back to Karkat over her shoulder. "Because there are _TW3LV3_. One in each sector. The one in Gamzee's is just biggest and closest."

"Well, we were in my room, of course," Kanaya said. "I'm not even sure the ovens down here work. Gamzee met me just after John started cleaning and I offered to let him roast the chicken in my room. I thought it was obvious we weren't in the main kitchen, the way he kept leaving it, or the way you never saw me leave the kitchen, Rose."

"Gamzee was raiding Karkat's for spices," Rose said, to explain the former.

"Hey!" Karkat complained, but this was neither the time nor the place.

"It does explain a lot, though," Rose said. "Considering you went to the trouble of cleaning the pots and pans," Rose added. Kanaya nodded. "After all..."

"...why clean what someone else is just going to replace after the very next meal I'm not watching like a hawk?" Kanaya finished.

Terezi clicked her tongue at Gamzee. "Should have told us, Nigel."

Gamzee frowned. "Well, I could'a, but Watson there said it wasn't... what's the word? Relevant? Because it wasn't in the cafeteria."

"Quite right!" Terezi said. "Oh, don't be sad," she added to Rose, who was actually more angry with herself. "It only just became relevant."

"So what?" Karkat demanded. "All this changes is that they have an alibi... _somewhere else_."

"That's right," Terezi agreed. "But remember something important..." As she spoke, she took out the pencil and sheet of paper a second time, neither of which she had carefully kept out of her inventory. She flipped the pencil around and erased something. She then took the sheet into her inventory. "Mate in one. What do you think, Karkat? I know you. You're not an idiot. Just really close!"

"I think you're full of shit," he said, still having not left his post at the couch, and she approached him about as close as a prosecutor would stand before her judge. Her finale was going to be picture perfect. "But that doesn't make you wrong."

"No. No it doesn't." Terezi smiled her broad shark-grin. "It's like I told my Watsons and the court. Whoever doesn't have an alibi is the criminal... and someone's alibi was just broken."

And then, for the first time since Rose had learned the dragon doll represented Terezi's lusus, Rose tensed. Terezi would have been proud to know that with all her goading, Rose had finally realized what this was all about. For the time, Terezi's attention was focused on her play, more or less. She seemed anxious, but was grinning and focused, like she was simply overcoming a case of butterflies in her stomach come in the final approach. "Do you know whose alibi that is, Karkat?" She held out her hand: "Take that."

The sheet of paper once again flew softly out of Terezi's inventory, did a graceful flip, and was snagged out of the air by Karkat. While he read it at first with his usual demeanor, Rose saw as his cheeks went flush, as he, too, realized what Terezi had started. And the music changed.

"That's right, Karkat," Terezi said, her voice low. "Kanaya wasn't in the big kitchen. That means _TH3 ONLY P3RSON 1N TH3 L4B WHO DO3SNT H4V3 4N 4L1B1... 1S YOU_"

Terezi kept her eyes on him in his sudden panic, and took in the response from the gallery only with her ears. "Here's what I think happened. John starts to clean up the lab, and on the way out, Kanaya runs into Gamzee and turns back. When you arrived, however, you found my Pyralspite, and decided... why not? But what's your modus again, Karkat?" Terezi asked. "Oh, right. The one that makes the big beehive show up. Hard to use that in a crowded room. Easy to use it in an empty room, like the cafeteria. Or the kitchen. How far can those bees fly, Karkat?" Karkat was sweating bullets. "Oh, we know you went to the alchemiter, Karkat. You had to get that remote. And you couldn't have done it after, because dinner started right then. Just in time for you to blend right into the crowd."

"You..." Karkat said. "...This trial... You set me up!" He looked about his carefully prepared court set. "This whole act... someone steals a doll to get your attention after you go hide for a week, so you out them in front of everyone?"

"Was that a confession?" Terezi smirked.

"_ARRRRGH!_ Maybe if this whole trial is your insanity plea!" Karkat grabbed at his own hair. "What... what, was this just you going... _H3Y, ROS3, L3TS SCR3W OV3R K4RK4T_"

"Oh my god, you are so terrible at that."

"Oh, oh, or maybe: _HeY, mOtHeRfUcKiNg lAwYeR cHiCkA, lEt's tHrOw a fUcKiNg sHoW!_"

"I'm serious, you're just absolutely terrible," she said, grin as broad as ever. The game seemed to agree, as it changed off of its revelation theme. "_It's aLl a8oUt tHe iNfLeCtIoN,_ _YOU KNOW WH4T 1 M3AN_? But yeah, I can really see why you think this is all about you, Karkat. I mean, besides the ego thing." When Karkat looked confused, she sighed, taking a step forward. "Oh you silly, stupid boy." Ignoring his hands, which shot up for defence, she reached up through his guard to pat him on the cheek. "Of course I could have set you up, but that wouldn't be have been _funny_. Now, you doing it to yourself..." And then she began to laugh and he had to step back into the couch, fists clenching and unclenching, unsure how to even take the first recovery step back onto semi-solid ground.

The prosecution took the opening and continued her tangential case. "But of _course_ it's a scheme! I couldn't be chasing real justice, could I, Karkat? Noooo... how could it not be all about you? How would the world survive? With you as our big scary leader, well! Everything's been falling into place, every problem fixed up nice like it's some grub jigsaw, all on your watch." She gestured toward Tavros and Eridan. "Everything's been going so well for everyone, clearly this is just some petty little scheme of mine to hear your dulcet tones." She took a step to close the new gap between them, and leaned coquettishly towards him. "Why, you just radiate authority these days! While I've been off hiding my room, well, you've just all grown into the greatest leader Trolls and Humans have ever known, haven't you?"

She cupped her hand again on his cheek. His fists tensed as he braced himself, ready for a jab, a slap, some kind of attack, and goodness knew he looked ready with a follow-up reply. To his surprise, she leaned to his ear and spoke in a whisper: "What do you say we wrap up this little trial so you can have the prosecution to your chambers for a short... recess?"

His eyes shot wide, his face fell a mile in terror, and she felt it and broke away with echoing peals of insane laughter. "Oh my god, your face! _heheh3h3..._" She clutched at her sides. "..._H4H4H4H4H4!_" He stared agape. They all did. "That's it! That's all I needed. Of course I set you up for a big public fall! I knew it was you before you even showed up, but I didn't because it wouldn't have been as fun to just say it! I'm guilty. Rose! Put me in the cell next to him. I can't take it anymore!"

Karkat's expression was quite the contrast to Terezi's laughter. He watched her laugh for a while until she took a break to look up and check the damage, which was substantial. "...Don't do that," he muttered. "That's not funny."

"Why?" she said, with a dark undertone in her voice, "_SOR3 M3MOR13S?_"

Rose winced. "That wasn't called for," she said.

"Try me," Terezi said without turning from Karkat. "So, Karkat? What's the big deal?"

"This whole thing!" he complained. "How about the fact that this clearly isn't about your dragon, and you know it!"

Terezi paced away. "Oh, I know you know what this about." She glared down at him, for all he was taller than her. "It's all that's keeping you from shouting out the obvious complaints! But I knew it was you before I started, remember? Rose, what was it I said about the person who stole my doll?" Terezi turned back to the others, for the first time taking in the impact of her revelation on the whole crowd, and savouring.

"You said..." Rose stammered, trying to remember the exact wording. "...The person who stole it must have been an enemy." Karkat balked, and Rose was not sure what to say. "I-I don't know, Karkat. I mean..." His face fell. "Honestly. How many people in this Lab knew what that doll meant to Terezi? If you were trying to get her attention... you should have known not to do that."

Terezi approached Karkat another step. "But I'm glad you did. It's been a fun cap to a great week."

Karkat's thoughts were clearly all over the board, nervousness paramount among them, and he needed time to regroup, but Rose felt that he could have done anything better in the entire world than to bid for time by asking: "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Oh, I don't know," Terezi said, her voice calm: so calm it had to be false, and so all the more frightening. Rose backed a step away as Terezi swept out her cane. "Few days ago, someone I trust breaks all the hope I have that I'm doing okay... and that we're going to be safe here, in this deathtrap?" She scoped the room, perhaps checking to see if Dave had returned. "And he leaves me all on my own, and... do you come? No. The first news I get, from the whole outside world is that you... _refused_ to come." Terezi turned back to him, eyes cold. "That you made up excuses, about '_SHAR-_'" Terezi's voice broke, whether emotionally or in inability to do the impression, Rose could not tell, as she kept her bearing perfectly. "...'Sharp, pointy rocks.' And there I was! Upset, hurt... and there's this squeezing... uh... crushing feeling, like, in my chest? Because, I thought, that after all these sweeps, even if you didn't care about me anymore, you would still be there for me, somehow, uh... you dipshit? Now I know, I know, that doesn't sound like the start of a fun week, but bear with me."

He held up a hand, out of instinct and in comfort, but she did not seem to notice, and he stopped himself well before reaching her. To cover for his motion, he spoke out. "Oh, I get it. This is where the revenge fantasy pushes its way into your sick little head. Well, I'm sorry you got upset that I had the gall to not make things worse!"

"But then," Terezi said, and she pushed aside his hand with a spread of her arms, "after being bossed around with Egbert on Imp Flushes because you don't have the nerve to face me?" He couldn't help it, he actually growled at her, but it was clear it was not going to half quiet her now. "What do I hear? What did I hear, Karkat, when you come limping in from a patrol one day? Was it that you were coddling poor little Sollux for getting a little scratch on his ego? For getting a little tired in a fight? That you're going overboard to calm him down because he might have hurt one of his friends? She's not even your friend! No offence, Aradia," she said over her shoulder, who was looking on as fascinated as everyone else. "Just you, looking out for someone you care about, who's upset about something... completely removed from you." She clapped her hands once, and then leaned in so she could whisper: "And that pain, you know, in my chest? Came back, and squeezed really, really hard? And then..." She make a spreading gesture with her hand. "Nothing! I clued in. _I got it._ I realized... you've stopped caring about me... _completely_, right Karkat?"

"Hey!" he snapped, pointing a finger in her face. "What do you... where do you get off with... _HOW DO YOU THINK I WAS FEELING WH-_"

"No, no!" Terezi interrupted. "I get it! I'm not saying you never cared, or that this didn't hurt you too. It's just... sometimes... you stop liking someone." Her glance flicked to Rose, only momentarily. "If you've noticed they've _changed_. Karkat. Quite the month we've had, isn't it?" He had no response. "And then," she finished, rocking on the balls of her feet. "Then you took my Pyralspite."

"So what?" he growled. The point of the whole trial was as clear to Karkat as it was to Rose, and perhaps he saw the need to let its accruements fall where Terezi had set them up. "What if I thought... serves you right? Or what if I thought it'd be a good conversation piece to get past your _crazy_? Looks like that worked!"

"What did you think I would do?" Terezi demanded. Karkat shook his head as his only response, astonished, like he had remembered all at once with whom he was dealing, and what she was capable of. "It's been nice," she said, "to know where your thoughts are for once, even if you won't talk to me anymore."

"You can't think I'm that stupid," he said, in what passed for him as a hushed voice, something closer to a normal speaking tone. "You think I didn't want to talk to you about this? With you hiding in your room every free hour?"

She shrugged, her tone slipping toward in an emotional surge. "I thought, after all this time, I could trust you when things go bad. Bad with Dave. Bad with J- bad with anything! I trust my ears and nose and tongue to see for me..." Rose realized, in her frustration to cover what she knew about Jack, Terezi had said some things she had not meant to say any of that out loud, at least not without obfuscation or misdirection. She wrapped up quickly: "...I thought I could trust you, too."

"All you had to do was tell me," he muttered. "Email, write all over one of my memos, _SHOUT AT ME IN THE FUCKING HALL, GODDAMMIT!_"

Rose had a few words for Karkat about who had burned whose bridges, but Terezi took a different angle to say: "Oh, I would never bother _you_, Karkat! You're spending so much time with all your leaderly work. I know you just don't have time anymore!"

There it was. It was clear to Rose that this mention of leadership, coated with new venom, had not been brought up for fun like it had before. No: Terezi was swinging where Karkat was strongest and most proud, to complete her grand show in as spectacular a fashion as possible. Terezi had taken her stolen scalemate case and turned it into a new grand breakup farewell to replace whatever plans she had been trying to make with Dave. Now that Karkat's leadership skills were on the table, all she had to do was to hit him back at just the right angle and he would collapse under the weight of his own ego. All Rose could wonder was whether she could pull off that kind of emotional blow unscathed. She was already losing control of her emotions. For a moment, Rose considered stepping in, but they were already shouting and lashing about.

"I have spent _EVERY. WAKING. MOMENT._ since we got on this Lab trying to make sure everyone on this Lab is ready for Jack and _happy_, Terezi, and if you got your head out of your selfish waste chute for five fucking minutes, I think-"

"Oh, big words," she replied, getting angrier now. "Big words from a guy that's been playing it by ear Every. Waking. Moment-"

"What the hell is wrong with playing it by ear?" he demanded. "Maybe you haven't noticed, but things keep changing around here, and there are fifteen of you running around like cluckbeasts with your heads cut off-"

"Oh, sure, blame us, you self-absorbed _rage_ case!" Terezi almost walked away, trying to placate her anger by pacing. "Let's just forget about the way you keep dropping us like dead leaves once we don't fit into your time budget. You don't talk to me, don't talk to Gamzee. You left Eridan to Rose when it came to Vriska _and_ Tavros, but oh, Sollux, still have time for Sollux! For now."

"Oh, well, forgive me for not being perfect!"

"So he admits it," Terezi said, smug for all her shouting.

Karkat pressed on: "Forgive me for not having all the time in the world!" Karkat shouted. "It's almost like, oh! _It's impossible!_ If you had an issue with how things were going, Pyrope, maybe you should have _brought it up_ instead of hiding it behind your games with Strider? Whoops! You were too busy _not even bringing it up your problems to Strider_!"

"Well what if we can't talk to you, Karkat? What about when we can't? Because you're too busy playing it by ear! What about when we can't find the time, or the emotional... _grounding_ to put up with your shit for five damn minutes-"

"'Can't!'" Karkat growled. "That's your excuse? That you can't? Seems like you're still talking pretty well to me!"

"We can't keep up with you, you insensitive jackass! There's nothing to keep up with!" Terezi shrieked. "Nothing's the same with you one day to the next! You have no plans! You've never had any plans! There's nothing for us to trust!"

"Who has plans for crazy psycho-bitches that go shit-crazy because someone took their dolls?" Karkat found the nerve to push back, taking a step towards Terezi..

"You just don't care!" Terezi shouted. "You don't care what she meant to me. You don't care what you meant to me! You just walked away!"

Karkat pointed a thumb at his chest. "I walked away because I had better shit to do than put up with your drama!"

"Better shit to do? _You. Have. No. Plans!_" Terezi barred her teeth. "You don't _have_ anything better to do! No plans for Jack, no plans-nothing! You walk away, from _everything!_ That's your 'leadership!' That's your glowing example: Full, fucking retreat. Is that what you're going to do, Karkat? When you fuck up next? Is that what you're going to do when one of us dies on your watch and there's no one to blame but yourself?"

So he hit her. And the game let the music stop.

The swing Terezi had expected, indeed it was clear to Rose that it was the very aim of her goading from the start, but neither of them actually expected him to connect. His fist cut across her right cheek in spite of her best efforts to raise her arm to block. She had perhaps always been fast, and every rung of the echeladder made her all the faster, but perhaps they had both underestimated some gap between Knight and Seer, or just maybe, like Terezi had alluded, they still thought they still had some lingering grain of trust between them that would not have allowed them to cross that final line. Though she did not prevent the blow, Terezi caught his arm a second late, seizing Karkat by the wrist out of reflex, fluid despite the injury. They stood in tableau for a good while, both shocked dead by what they had seen clear-coming, not willing to believe it all the same. Slowly, Terezi reached up with her free hand and lowered her shades, and met Karkat's eyes with two blasted pupils drowned in milky jaundice. Karkat tried not to meet those eyes. Rose could not remember the last time she had seen them look one another in the eyes, outside of their play-trial. Perhaps it was so long ago that doing so again dug up memories of better days, or the first of the foul. But now, though her face spoke a cold-stunned mix of emotion, her eyes stared vacant and he could not look at them. Not after the punch, now that they had crossed all bounds of Pity.

Softly, she whispered: "...I win."

She twisted his arm at an angle it did not want to go and he fell with a cry to his knees, and repaid him across the face with a backhand, so hard he had to brace himself to keep from hitting the ground. Terezi took a hold of her cane, slipping it off the loop of her wrist before she pressed it to his chest until he lay upon the floor, with her looking down from above. Foot replaced cane, and she struck the cane to the floor aside his ear, where it bore her weight as she leaned over top of her prey, leaving them both in a heavy silence.

"Guys..." someone said from far off, though to Rose, they seemed even further than that. Jade? Feferi? John? "You guys... We should..."

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Karkat shouted to break their personal silence, which made Terezi laugh all over again.

She smiled even broader. "Tit for tat, Karkat, and what the hell is wrong with _you?_ Where's the Karkat with all the confidence and shouting, did I knock him loose? As for me, well! Can't a girl have a _L1TTLE FUN, K4RK4T?_" She leaned slightly forward, the weight on her foot pressing down on his chest. "You had your turn. You got to get up and play His Tyranny! Slam down your gavel, give your biggest roar and deliver a sentence to the guilty party, but somehow, I got this crazy idea that you couldn't pull it off. And you didn't. Let's be honest, Karkat. It's time you stop being what you're not."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you're no judge, Karkat. You're no leader. You just sat there and let me tromp over you. I gave you the power to end that! Just slam down your gavel. Blame yourself. Blame me! That's how justice works. And fourteen other people would say 'Oh, okay, we're done.' Because they don't care! But when you saw me coming at you, you tried to fight me on your own level. You just don't have the horns for command."

Karkat scowled and picked at the side of his head. "I'm sorry, say that last part again, I think I had some 'you're a fucking bitch' stuck in here." He pointed his finger into her face. "You wouldn't understand what it takes to command. You don't have what it takes to be a subordinate! Don't you even recognize that the only reason we're still alive is because we haven't been blowing up in each other's faces!" He shouted: "Dammit, if you trusted me, why didn't you show it and talk to me? I'm one of the few reasons we're still alive here! My organization! My improvisation! My! Plans!"

"_THEN GET UP HERE!_" she said in her poor mimic of his tone, and she stepped off his chest and clasped the hand he had been using to gesture. She crouched down low, close enough for him to feel her breath on his face. "Get off your back, and show me you actually deserve to sit there and call me a bitch, you wriggling coward!"

And she stood up and jerked his arm, tossing him one-handed so that she could catch him again behind the neck. He responded fast, and they pulled one another into a kiss that set Rose's stomach to churn. Lips locked and grips tightened, they held the kiss with both their weight on Terezi's strength and cane. His free hand grabbed up and clutched at her side, a free-flow of energy jumping hot between them in coursing hormones and blinding emotion; the room about them stopped dead. John and Jade were shocked; Nepeta, cut twice over.

Rose tried to take a step forward, not sure what she was going to say or to what end, when Terezi pulled back, her lips a hair's breadth from his, and she chuckled and dropped him to the ground. There, she gently stroked and then jabbed a finger on his ribs. "Now open your inventory."

Karkat smirked up, smug but half-dazed, as he gently stroked one of her horns with the tip of his finger. "You get access to my inventory when Human hell freezes over."

"My dragon, putz," Terezi protested.

Karkat chuckled, and pulled himself back up towards her to plant a short series of kisses at the end of her jaw. Terezi sighed, perhaps as much out of pleasure as complaint. But then he whispered into her ear: "Fuck you."

She raised an eyebrow, knowing him too well to be surprised by his tone, but before she could finish saying "Hell n-" Karkat knocked away her cane. Simultaneously, he kicked out a leg and he pulled her crashing to the ground aside him. She shouted aloud in pain at first, and groaned as she curled to one side to coddle her arm, and so rolled up against Karkat in what Rose could only see as an awful mockery of matesprit closeness. He could not help it: it was his turn to laugh, but as he did, he rapped a knuckle on the nearby floor and caused his inventory-hive to reappear.

"Hey!" he called, and a representative flock of bees appeared near his head. "See her? Unless I'm getting torn apart, and someone other than her is doing it? You don't help her: ever." The bees flew a rapid pattern in positive response.

"Lovely," Terezi said. Her hair had fallen across her face and she pushed some of it aside with her now-only good hand, before taking to her feet and stepping over him. Perusing the hive, she plucked inquisitively at the rumbled up shirt and pulled it out. She opened the bundle. "Hmph," she said. "Here's your decisive evidence. Take _that_, asshole," she said, as she tossed the shirt - and Pyralspite - into his chest, where it squeaked to a stop.

After all that had happened, Rose was almost surprised to see the dragon doll, and felt the only tiny sense of relief she had felt since the kiss when Karkat returned the scalemate to its owner voluntarily, muttering: "Heh. Why not? Why bother?"

Terezi slumped down next to him, dragon cupped dearly in her hurt arm, and then sighed and looked up at the others. "Sorry folks, show's over," she said. That seemed to break the spell over the others, though their reactions were mixed. Rose could not help but catch her closest friends' terrified gapes, or Kanaya's unspoken offer of conversation, if she needed it. Rose acknowledged them all, wanting to take up all three, but something held her back. Absent, she reached down and picked up the strip of paper Karkat had dropped at some point during the fight, like cleaning up litter. She went over the blocks a second time, Terezi's marks mixed with her own.

"So this is it, huh?" Karkat said after Rose had checked the blocks a second time. "After all these sweeps?"

"...Yeah," Terezi replied. She captchalogued her glasses, to the slight puff of spearmint as her modus returned to normal. Pyralspite went away as well. Shifting up and over, Terezi straddled Karkat and looked him in the eyes. Rose noticed a teal bruise beginning to flower along her face where he had first hit her, and had no doubt he was developing his own. "I mean, is it really that surprising? It's not what I pictured, but I guess it works. You and me just... fighting to see who gets to be in charge and never really winning till... till hell, Karkat, whenever this goes?"

"Sure, I mean, whenever you want," Karkat said. "You and me, fucking around. Just throw a fist my way, I'll block it, we'll make a big mess of the place, how's that sound? C'mon, Rez, don't be stupid. You know this is gonna be mind games to the end of fucking time."

"End of time, huh?" Terezi said, with a croak in her voice. "What about Jack?"

Karkat shuddered. "Fuck Jack," he said. "Asshole. Y'know..." he said, as he rubbed at Terezi's side. "Sometimes I look at all the data from Megido and the sensors and it feels like he's getting closer and closer. If we still had dreams I'd probably be having nightmares about old fleabait because I'm already seeing him in every rattle and roll in an empty room."

Terezi started laughing into Karkat's shirt at the idea of him running scared from the Lab's everpresent clanging ambience, and even nestled closer against his chest. After a while she added: "Bark!"

"Fuck you."

"You okay, Watson?" Gamzee asked Rose, as he found her with her face flushed in a sick-full feel of confusion. Gamzee had his serious voice again, and in a way it helped Rose to pull back to reality.

"I'm..." Rose wasn't sure. She knew, with a new certainty, that it was time to talk to John and Jade and Kanaya, maybe at once. And... Dave. "I know what to do about it. It's just... new to me." She stuffed the Clue sheet into her pocket. "I'll be okay."

"You got it, James," Gamzee said, and he squeezed her hand and headed off. Rose also took the opportunity to leave, as Karkat and Terezi kissed a second time, and Karkat traced a finger down her cheek, with a frown on his face. "Fuck, I missed you."

Rose signalled to Kanaya with her head, and went to Jade and John, who waited for her at far side of the room, Jade's face a mask of confusion and John unable to look away from the metamorphosed couple. He held his arms tight to his chest. "Rose," he said, "this is gonna be a surprise to you, but... I don't think I hate Karkat."

Terezi leaned down, and pulled herself close to Karkat, hands free to hold, teeth to bite, lips to speak and kiss and whisper; a chance to do what kismeses do, before they know better.

* * *

><p>First drafters looking for an explanation should know where to go by now.<p>

I was going to have the Squiddles spouting out of date environmental fears rather than alluding to global warming, but I decided that having Mint say "fluorocarbons" was an opportunity not to be missed.

Terezi's Clue Sheet is covered in names from the storied Clue(do) franchise (specifically: Scarlett, Brunette, Mustard, Grey, Green, Meadow-Brook, Peacock, Azure, Plum, Lavender and Rose), but it turns out Clue has only one Green name while we need three, and other such issues. Oh well. To be perfectly honest, the actual image says "Miss. Green", but shh! Don't tell anyone.

All of Karkat's impressions, while correct in quirk, are miscoloured on AO3, leaning toward his grey and highlighting the vague "something" that's missing from his impressions. Tavros in Chapter 2 had a similar issue in his Eridan impression. Despite the trouble she has holding up her imitations of Karkat (both here and in Chapter 4), Terezi's impressions are perfect, as are everyone else's to-date, which is perhaps a bit worrying from Nepeta.

.

"_She Deliberately Withheld The Fact That Karkats Alibi Relied On Me So She Could Throw Pots At Me Didnt She_"

"Yes, I think so. More dramatic that way."

_"Ill Be With You All In A Minute"_

"...Where are you going?"

_"To Find Some Pots"_


	9. Gradeschool Mono-Poly Quarter-Fuck

_I don't know what this site thinks it's doing but it's spitting on everything I try to submit and it's not giving me very explanatory reasons for why - I tried to submit one line of text with no non-standard characters or formatting and it said it was invalid! I've worked out that it likes docx well enough, but we're going to have to go without italics for Tone this time around due to Reasons. Long story, not sure I understand every part of it myself, read the AO3 version instead it has colour, etc, etc._

* * *

><p><strong>TG:<strong> all im saying is**  
>TG:<strong> if it were anyone but gigglefins id be suspecting some real middle school level foul play here**  
>TT:<strong> You're implying that someone else would have used a pool party as an excuse for noogeying and pool noodle duels?**  
>TG:<strong> middle school not grade school**  
>TG:<strong> homeschooler**  
>TG:<strong> but lets not talk about that lets talk about how pool noodle duels are awesome and how if id knew there were any on this rock theydve already happened**  
>TT:<strong> What a shame, I was hoping to hear more of your comparison between Feferi sharing her passions to sixth grade tomfoolery. I'm sure it would be very insightful / juvenile in-and-of itself.**  
>TG:<strong> im saying that if this were anyone else this would clearly be a big zany plan to get everyone in their bathing gear to work out those first awkward puberty tingles**  
>TG:<strong> and by the way criminally undershooting a good party if you asked my opinion**  
>TG:<strong> look me in the digital eye and tell me youd think this was perfectly innocent if somebody came up with this plan who wasnt already wearing their bathing suit every day of the week**  
>TG:<strong> which you wont because you wouldnt know a good time if it smacked you in the face with its long squishy noodle**  
>TT:<strong> Are you critiquing the sexual experimentation of middle schoolers? Because I'm not certain this is a route you want to follow to its end.**  
>TG:<strong> im critiquing the experimental whatever you want to call it of a group of teenagers with tons of better shit they could be doing parties or otherwise**  
>TT:<strong> I already find it suspicious that you seem to have a set of presumptions about the sexual maturity of every member of our group.**  
>TG:<strong> of course i have presumptions my presumption is that the rest of you are all twisting to make some presumptions of your own wink wink nudge nudge the punchlines that you think a pool party is racy**  
>TT:<strong> At yet, with all your suspicions about this being some sort of preteen gawking party for full-teens, you're still coming.**  
>TG:<strong> dont tisk me lady youre the one whos gonna going to all this trouble for a new bathing suit im not the only one raising a fuss**  
>TG:<strong> probably already called in maryam to dazzle it up for you**  
>TT:<strong> Actually: no, as it turns out I'm perfectly capable of using the alchemiter.**  
>TG:<strong> boring**  
>TT:<strong> Kanaya would gladly size you for a bikini if you'd like, she'd hate for her talents to go to waste.**  
>TG:<strong> nah mine still fits**  
>TT:<strong> Then I await its grandeur.**  
>TG:<strong> you should it matches the shades perfectly**  
>TG:<strong> ive got this summerwear crap down here on this space station**  
>TT:<strong> So it's hideous?**  
>TG:<strong> its stunning is what it is**  
>TG:<strong> like the most careful threadcraft of the spandex gnomes working through the night to craft a great idol of fabric in worship and support of my stupendous jugs**  
>TT:<strong> And yet despite your attempts to distract me with your mammary advantage, it's sinking in for me that you plan on keeping your eyewear on even within sight of the pool.**  
>TT:<strong> What with all the sunlight.**  
>TG:<strong> of course the shades stay on rose ive gotta draw a clear line in the pretend sand between me and these flirty juvenile shenanigans**  
>TT:<strong> When teenagers are exploring the depths of their budding sexualities: he'll be there!**  
>TG:<strong> when theyre indulging crushes at random through a 1970s style swinger party downgraded game of spin the bottle: he'll be there**  
>TT:<strong> When they're risking a chancy fondle between kisses in the darkened confines of Seven Minutes in Heaven: he'll be there too.**  
>TG:<strong> in the closet**  
>TT:<strong> Right.**  
>TG:<strong> going all super creepy here at the end but we had better bring it home with the the grand finale: full-out forfeit-based singles and doubles games of strip poker**  
>TG:<strong> each game more complicated than the last**  
>TG:<strong> until absolutely everyone has banged everyone else**  
>TT:<strong> Oh Strider.**  
>TT:<strong> What has the Internet wrought in you?**  
>TG:<strong> apotheosis**  
>TT:<strong> Terrifying.**  
>TT:<strong> So if we're seeing you at this party – gawking, as you will, at our pre-assured gawking in turn – should we be expecting your companion in truancy as well? And if so, will she too be stripping down to her tin skivvies for the sake of this adolescent trap you've imagined for us all?**  
>TG:<strong> haha oh I WISH**  
>TT:<strong> !**  
>TT:<strong> Well here's a surprise. Not only does he not try to deny knowledge of what I'm even talking about in regards to a "companion", he flings himself into it.**  
>TG:<strong> oh no rose is suspicious of me and aradia's constant and obvious disappearances whatever will i do better whip up the mother of all lies**  
>TT:<strong> Practicing for strip poker.**  
>TG:<strong> yes nailed it youre a godsend**  
>TG:<strong> okay but seriously**  
>TG:<strong> look i dont have much respect for this little peep party of peixes right?**  
>TT:<strong> As you insist on calling it, yes.**  
>TG:<strong> but you dont know what this girl is like, rose**  
>TT:<strong> I know that she's a robot and your enthusiasm about inviting her to a pool party is suspicious at least.**  
>TG:<strong> not my point my point is that she needs shaking up even if that means dragging her to a teen sex party or whatever were pretending this is now im losing track**  
>TT:<strong> I think you and I are pretending entirely different things.**  
>TG:<strong> the trouble is that ive never worked with someone whos "no audience" before i mean she's like a blank wall**  
>TG:<strong> im used to people who are receptive but my audience has been limited the past few days**  
>TT:<strong> Terezi? Are we talking about that, because I know the three of us have been waiting for you to open that particular door.**  
>TG:<strong> oh well now that i know youre gonna be eager to help**  
>TG:<strong> consider the door shut**  
>TG:<strong> and locked**  
>TG:<strong> now can we talk about aradia please**  
>TT:<strong> If you insist. Well...**  
>TT:<strong> The problem there is that you're just not the slightest bit entertaining, isn't it?**  
>TT:<strong> She's just not willing to humour you like the rest of us. I'm afraid our good graces have socially crippled you.**  
>TT:<strong> I did warn John but he insisted on coddling.**  
>TG:<strong> hey can it me and megido get a pretty good thing going when she wants to talk**  
>TG:<strong> she been tuning me in to some of her old physical training**  
>TT:<strong> Aradia?**  
>TG:<strong> yeah whips to use and deathtraps to dodge its just up my line but different enough to be new**  
>TG:<strong> guys gotta stretch his growth**  
>TT:<strong> Interesting. I can't say it's something I've taken into consideration.**  
>TG:<strong> says the girl who fights with knitting needles she first picked up a year and a half ago yeah i cant imagine why**  
>TG:<strong> now i dont really have a bone to throw back megidos way cause i cant shoot firecrackers from my fingertips after all but we work out okay**  
>TG:<strong> i dunno for sure maybe its her computer brains but she gets pretty in tune with some of my mixes**  
>TG:<strong> and she knows a lot about the past and relics we actually spent a whole night talking about decomp it was something else**  
>TT:<strong> You mean, like your long-forgotten of collection of dead things?**  
>TG:<strong> yeah forgotten by you maybe**  
>TG:<strong> i outta pour one out for the poor guys wiped out by jack like that**  
>TG:<strong> just dump a bottle of methanol on the floor theres a good plan**  
>TT:<strong> Now don't you start pre-empting my insults, or what will we have to talk about any longer?**  
>TT:<strong> I don't think either of us remember how to hold a proper conversation.**  
>TG:<strong> early bird gets the chemical fumes wafting up from this particular worm rose**  
>TG:<strong> my point is she and ive got different perspectives on it but she actually knows her shit**  
>TT:<strong> I'll have to take your word on it.**  
>TG:<strong> yes rose really not all of us have nice tidy interests like godsquids im sorry**  
>TT:<strong> How on earth does one carry on a conversation of that nature for an entire night?**  
>TG:<strong> "of that nature"?**  
>TG:<strong> hell we were just talking about one angle**  
>TG:<strong> you wouldnt get it**  
>TT:<strong> You don't know that!**  
>TG:<strong> aw thats cute rose but im sorry its just not your field**  
>TT:<strong> I'm just not used to you having an interest in a branch of knowledge practical for any purpose but the performance of ill rhymes.**  
>TG:<strong> sorry but unless you go look it up yourself youre just gonna have to live with not being privy to the secrets of the formaldehyde-suspended gods**  
>TG:<strong> i make it a policy not to tell my secrets to the one friend who might find creative reasons to use them.**  
>TG:<strong> That's you.**  
>TT:<strong> I followed.**  
>TT:<strong> So if things are so good for you and your mummy buddy, why this desire to drag her to the pool party?**  
>TG:<strong> well see its cool to talk and that but thing is she never does and i dont think even she likes that it goes that way**  
>TG:<strong> youd probably get more out of it out of her than me doc**  
>TG:<strong> its like she forgets shes supposed to be a person half the time**  
>TT:<strong> And you're hoping to administer the social equivalent of a hiccup shock cure?**  
>TG:<strong> cmon rose admit it you wanna crack this metal nut too**  
>TG:<strong> look the only way i know how to keep this chick grounded in the real world and smiling is to let her babble about ancient troll history**  
>TG:<strong> which is actually kind of awesome i mean take any random bit of human history but spin it so its actually interesting**  
>TG:<strong> but lets branch out here**  
>TT:<strong> I may have stumbled across a fault in your interest.**  
>TG:<strong> fault in everyone elses maybe**  
>TG:<strong> megido gets it and besides this fills a major life goal for me**  
>TG:<strong> ive filled my quadrants rose**  
>TT:<strong> Your quadrants.**  
>TG:<strong> yeah**  
>TG:<strong> my dork quadrants**  
>TG:<strong> ive got me my overeducated dork**  
>TG:<strong> my immature dork**  
>TG:<strong> my dork king**  
>TG:<strong> and at long last ive met a dork whose just the fucking normal kind you have no idea what kind of a relief this is**  
>TT:<strong> What a big day for you.**  
>TT:<strong> You've got them all.**  
>TT:<strong> You are you the very best, like no one ever was.**  
>TG:<strong> nice try but jades got juvie dork solid you dont have a chance to double down**  
>TT:<strong> Worth a shot.**  
>TG:<strong> i just figured that maybe if megidos my normal dork friend we could maybe sometimes talk about shit that isnt dork shit how about**  
>TG:<strong> normal people stuff that fun people do thats all**  
>TG:<strong> do i have to be surrounded by dorks forever**  
>TT:<strong> But we'd miss you.**  
>TG:<strong> but youd have a field week analyzing why youd miss me and by then id be back so no foul**  
>TT:<strong> But if you leave, who will fill my jackass quadrants?**  
>TT:<strong> You can't just strand me like this, Strider.**  
>TT:<strong> Eridan is clamouring for the Self-Important Jackass slot and for Vriska in the Backstabbing Jackass**  
>TT:<strong> "ok neww plan ivve gotta keep intact for tavv noww you knoww so if she threatens me again like last night youvve gotta go after her with your sticks wwhen shes lookin the other way."**  
>TT:<strong> "but dont wait too long or she wont realize wwhy your stabbing her" **TT:** "gotta rub her face in it shes like a barkfiend like that"**  
>TG:<strong> yikes**  
>TT:<strong> "no roz im not callin them that theyre just sticks okay? fuck"**  
>TT:<strong> I'd really feel out of place without my trusty Self-Absorbed Jackass.**  
>TG:<strong> hey dont look at me lalonde we both knew what this was about when we started**  
>TT:<strong> *sigh***  
>TT:<strong> This is true.**  
>TG:<strong> why dont you do what all of us do in times like this and complain to our trusty, mutual Loudmouth Jackass**  
>TG:<strong> hes so reliable**  
>TG:<strong> like a community service really he even fills his own slot for himself**  
>TT:<strong> I don't particularly care to bring Karkat into this affair.**  
>TT:<strong> Though I'm sort of surprised he isn't already involved in the other affair.**  
>TG:<strong> the preteen catwalk-into-water winter bikini prom of 2009?**  
>TT:<strong> That's the one.**  
>TT:<strong> Let's face it, unlike yourself, Vantas has no hope of being crowned King and dancing the slow-dance of shame with himself while the audience applauds.**  
>TG:<strong> dont you take the magic out of my evening rose**  
>TT:<strong> I wouldn't dream of it! That spotlight is all yours.**  
>TT:<strong> I'm just saying that Karkat lacks the proper amenities for an attractive swimsuit body.**  
>TT:<strong> Like, for example, an attractive body.**  
>TG:<strong> at least hes pretty much already shaved**  
>TG:<strong> if that guy had to get a bikini wax i think wed here it back on earth**  
>TT:<strong> Do Trolls HAVE body hair? I don't think I've seen so much as a beard.**  
>TG:<strong> well youd know**  
>TT:<strong> So I fear.**  
>TG:<strong> so whos your pick to bring home mr and miss abandoned ectolab here at swimprom 09**  
>TT:<strong> I'm not sure. We have beauty contest procedure to follow here first. I'll have to see the applicants and hear their critical views on world peace before we can judge the swimsuit competition.**  
>TG:<strong> oh whoops im sorry but you forgot we were living with trolls**  
>TG:<strong> the answer to your questions about world peace are now:**  
>TG:<strong> "CoUlD YoU RePeAt tHe qUeStIoN I HaD A BaNaNa iN My eAr"**  
>TG:<strong> ":33 *the kingdom was at p33ce but little did they know that TROLLZILLA was rising from the seas to wreck VENGEANCE upon them!*"**  
>TG:<strong> and**  
>TG:<strong> "fuck them all iim goiing to dii2ney land"**  
>TT:<strong> Ironically, the only ones likely to understand the question are the ones I know have worn bathing suits in the past so this beauty contest all comes together for Teams Pisces and Virgo.**  
>TT:<strong> Unless one of us pulls it off.**  
>TT:<strong> I don't expect any better answers from you, frankly, but maybe we could goad John into saying a few nice words quoted liberally from Bill Pullman in Independence Day.**  
>TT:<strong> I'm sure he'll put an admirable counter-effort to your own in the swimsuit department, but we'll have to see to be sure.**  
>TG:<strong> oh look it's a gawkers laundry list john kanaya feferi even wow**  
>TG:<strong> youre not even going to act like wont be enjoying the show will you miss adolescent psychology**  
>TT:<strong> I swear I have no idea what you could be referring to.**  
>TG:<strong> well lets just say that someone i knows got a bi card that reads "pros: has a really fucking great time at coed pool parties"**  
>TG:<strong> among other things like "cons: doesn't exist"  
><strong>TG:<strong> but wow look at that pro rose its right there on the card cant guess thats the situation**  
>TT:<strong> Oh, don't be silly, Strider.**  
>TT:<strong> You know I only have eyes for you.**  
>TG:<strong> now see thats something that has to stop right the fuck here**  
>TG:<strong> first off because a guy shouldnt have to play flirt with his ectoglop sister when hes got only one layer of nylon weave between him and his junk**  
>TG:<strong> i mean that should just be a law or something**  
>TT:<strong> Don't worry, I'm prepared to let the other attendees make that an issue for you.**  
>TT:<strong> I'm sure I can work a few things out with some people that would be eager and capable of making life difficult for you. John, Jade, Nepeta, Gamzee...**  
>TG:<strong> hey get the clown off that boner list right the fuck now**  
>TT:<strong> You're objecting to Gamzee?**  
>TG:<strong> in particular? yes**  
>TG:<strong> look did you never see my house in either of the timelines youve got tell me how many clown dolls there were with cameras in them rose**  
>TG:<strong> tell me that**  
>TT:<strong> All right. I can see that being a legitimate concern.**  
>TG:<strong> so lets just say i dont wanna know how far down the paint goes and leave it at that**  
>TT:<strong> …How curiously phrased.**  
>TG:<strong> oh i bet**  
>TG:<strong> second reason you should stop the rampant sibling flirt is that I don't wanna get chainsawed in half that just doesnt fit my itinerary for the day**  
>TT:<strong> Yes, because Kanaya is certain to totally misinterpret you trying to joke your way into the gym showers with me?**  
>TG:<strong> so thats how youre gonna be?**  
>TG:<strong> youre not even gonna pussyfoot around with the whole "not my girlfriend" routine**  
>TT:<strong> Oh, I'll pussyfoot around whatever "not my girlfriend" routines are required to get the point across.**  
>TT:<strong> Until the metaphorical cows come home, if they must.**  
>TT:<strong> Taking our insults at your erectile situation in an unfortunate direction.**  
>TG:<strong> think that one got away from you there rose**  
>TG:<strong> sometimes you gotta know when to bail on a dick joke before it gets outta hand you know better than that**  
>TT:<strong> Are you lecturing me on dick joke etiquette?**  
>TG:<strong> damn straight who taught you this horrible display of non sequiters**  
>TG:<strong> was it john i'll kill him**  
>TT:<strong> I learned it from you, all right?**  
>TT:<strong> I learned it from chatting with you!**  
>TG:<strong> oh good you didnt miss the opening theres still hope**  
>TG:<strong> okay its all right son so long as we both admit weve got a problem**  
>TG:<strong> now lets crack open your weed and get back to phunny phalluses 101**  
>TG:<strong> lesson one about the mushroom-tipped tuber growing out of your midparts is that it aint got shit to do with herds of cows**  
>TT:<strong> Fascinating. I was so off-base.**  
>TG:<strong> now you see son if you threw that one at the taurus troll you might be in business**  
>TG:<strong> you could even branch it out if you had different targets**  
>TG:<strong> like say a school of fish or a pack of cats**  
>TG:<strong> because lets be honest, "clowder of puss" is just asking for a gag or three**  
>TG:<strong> a gagging three**  
>TT:<strong> This opens so many doors!**  
>TG:<strong> youve got it kid**  
>TG:<strong> weed and cock gags were on our way to gay stoner heaven right here**  
>TG:<strong> but no okay seriously back on topic**  
>TT:<strong> What part of that exchange was even a modicum short of serious for you?**  
>TG:<strong> most of it**  
>TG:<strong> dont really give a shit if you wanna tell jokes about me and a hundred cows**  
>TT:<strong> ;)**  
>TG:<strong> but you really are my son rose**  
>TT:<strong> I knew it. I knew John was a liar.**  
>TG:<strong> he was just lying to protect you my boy**  
>TT:<strong> Daddy hold me I'm scared.**  
>TG:<strong> its okay my boy shhh ive got you**  
>TG:<strong> now make your old man proud turn this into an incest joke in exactly one step**  
>TT:<strong> Daddy your overwhelming fatherly cologne makes me feel funny in my now-poorly defined genitalia and/or gender identity.**  
>TG:<strong> thats my boy**  
>TG:<strong> thats my boy**  
>TT:<strong> Brb**  
>TG:<strong> ?**  
>TT:<strong> sending this to John.**  
>TG:<strong> wait wait hold on let me turn off my music

Through the wall, Rose heard the sound of her best friend make an odd, wet wailing sound at the back of his throat. "Oh my god."

"John?" called Jade. "What is it?"

"Oh my god!"

**TG:** great idea**  
>TT:<strong> Thank you.**  
>TG:<strong> okay but seriously back on topic no more pussyfooting around**  
>TG:<strong> from me this time that is**  
>TG:<strong> what the fuck is up with you and carmilla**  
>TT:<strong> Literary references to nineteenth century lesbian vampires?**  
>TT:<strong> Are you sure it's me you're worried about flirting with? Because it seems to me like you're hitting on Kanaya.**  
>TG:<strong> shit why does that keep happening**  
>TG:<strong> all these gay vampire-loving chicks all the time clinging to my high-necked cowl i mean really**  
>TT:<strong> And never a straight woman in sight.**  
>TG:<strong> starting to get a little discouraging is all im saying**  
>TT:<strong> Yes, I'm sure I can only imagine.**  
>TG:<strong> you can only imagine because… youre… NOT hiding hickeys your most recent attempt at roleplaying?**  
>TT:<strong> Don't be silly. Today I'm the one brushing her teeth to get out the blood.**  
>TG:<strong> yeah id buy that**  
>TG:<strong> but seriously cmon we both know when it comes to kanayas bod in a one piece youre gonna go over the top one way or another**  
>TT:<strong> You seem so certain and yet I don't believe you.**  
>TG:<strong> yeah you play that up like that why not**  
>TG:<strong> way i see it youre either gonna 1) gawk at out of the corner of your eye while flicking some freudian pen at her because youre probably going to spend the party writing like a total dork**  
>TT:<strong> Dammit, I was actually going to do some writing.**  
>TG:<strong> or maybe 2) youre gonna just be all casual because youre already totally familiar if you know what im saying**  
>TG:<strong> all those late night trips to chez virgo**  
>TT:<strong> I guess I'm going to have to resort to books.**  
>TG:<strong> or 3) youre gonna be wearing the look-away shame of rejector/rejected**  
>TT:<strong> Dave are you trying to discuss feelings with me because this is a real breakthrough.**  
>TG:<strong> im trying to discuss the level of hot lesbian action in my overeducated nerd quadrant**  
>TG:<strong> fuck**  
>TG:<strong> or 4) maybe youre just not interested at all cmon rose throw me a bone**  
>TT:<strong> Not interested Kanaya at all?**  
>TT:<strong> Ridiculous. Have you so much as glanced at the woman when she's showing off her new clothes?**  
>TT:<strong> She's gorgeous.**  
>TT:<strong> She'd be dynamite if she put some effort into emphasizing her sexuality but in a way I prefer things as they are.**  
>TT:<strong> As does she if I'm reading her right.**  
>TG:<strong> rose i dunno if youve noticed but those little catwalks she does are being done special for somebody whos not me and is just maybe the girl talking about sexual dynamite**  
>TG:<strong> like they used in the old viagra mines back home**  
>TT:<strong> Now you're just showing how little you know her.**  
>TT:<strong> Kanaya's "catwalks" are for her, primarily.**  
>TG:<strong> youre a crush-blind schoolgirl**  
>TT:<strong> I'm serious.**  
>TT:<strong> I promise you that if even we were intimately embroiled at this very moment, Kanaya's mind would still be, at least for a blink of distraction, on the arrangement of any lingering lingerie to highlight the mutual experience.**  
>TG:<strong> bullshit**  
>TT:<strong> If I lie, may I eat my hat.**  
>TT:<strong> Oh shit, mulligan?**  
>TG:<strong> yeah why not**  
>TT:<strong> If I lie, may I eat out my girlfriend's bizarre hat-shaped genitalia**  
>TG:<strong> three points stuck the landing but bad form for just straight-up turning me the fuck off**  
>TT:<strong> I'm thinking a coonskin or perhaps a pickelhaube.**  
>TG:<strong> im serious this is testy strider gross out zone day what the hell**  
>TG:<strong> do me a favour and lets have no more clowns and no more unknown troll dangly bits i dont even wanna think about either again**  
>TT:<strong> Again?**  
>TG:<strong> i keep picturing this weird blood-coloured prehensile aedeagus trying to twist its way up in my business**  
>TG:<strong> and im not really interested in that if you know what i mean**  
>TG:<strong> oh who am i kidding of course you dont**  
>TT:<strong> Did you honestly just use the word "aedeagus"?**  
>TT:<strong> I just had to look that up, I'm shocked and still several steps behind you.**  
>TT:<strong> How long have you been thinking about this, and more importantly, why?**  
>TG:<strong> dont look too much into it rose the bug parts knowhow goes back to the sticking dead crawlies in jars phase**  
>TT:<strong> And yet I'm not distracted by my ACTUAL question in the slightest!**  
>TT:<strong> By the way, you don't need to worry about any sort of crawling betentacled penii**  
>TT:<strong> They ejaculate into wide-brimmed buckets, Dave, not space-station toilet vacuums.**  
>TT:<strong> In my mind, that implies one if not both of them has downward trajectory and poor aim.**  
>TT:<strong> I personally suspect some sort of xeno-cloacae.**  
>TG:<strong> rose its hard to aim anything when youre**  
>TG:<strong> wait no forget it i got a better bone to pick**  
>TT:<strong> Not touching that one.**  
>TG:<strong> shut up**  
>TG:<strong> im too busy being shocked that miss rose "three gigs of tentacle porn" lalonde is going with the most boring sex organ known to man over bizarre overthought alien weirdness**  
>TT:<strong> Is it that confounding to you that I might be genuinely interested the makeup of our be-candy-corned co-prisoners?**  
>TT:<strong> You who was, just moments ago, teasing me for this exact interest and worse in one Troll's "bod" in particular?**  
>TT:<strong> By the way, you were right. Kanaya isn't the only one I'm looking forward to seeing half-naked if we're going to be juvenile about it.**  
>TG:<strong> oh?**  
>TT:<strong> Oh yes, no counterattack for my accusations now the topic has changed back to one of teenaged anxieties. Truly this is score one for the Strider.**  
>TG:<strong> do you have a list for me or not?**  
>TT:<strong> Well, you for starters.**  
>TG:<strong> …**  
>TG:<strong> don't pause on me rose i ain't rising to that bait**  
>TT:<strong> I'm serious, though yes, it is mostly for ammunition purposes in our slinging matches.**  
>TG:<strong> oh good ive got a mostly nothing to worry about then**  
>TT:<strong> Nope.**  
>TG:<strong> lets move on**  
>TT:<strong> Well if you're not going to be pleasantly awkward about it I suppose I might as well just press on.**  
>TT:<strong> That being: Kanaya, John, Equius and in the hopes of worming a list from you in turn, yes, Feferi's attractive but I don't really expect to see any more of her unless she goes straight-up nude.**  
>TT:<strong> I mean, it's not like she's going to declare a skinny dip as though this were some drunk college party. We're still pretending this is grade school and she should have the memo by now, right?**  
>TG:<strong> zahhak really?**  
>TT:<strong> Yes.**  
>TT:<strong> Why not? Have you seen the boy? He's the definition of "built" even you can't deny that just out of hand.**  
>TT:<strong> blah blah, sexuality joke, cultural norms, freud freud**  
>TG:<strong> rose the man is moist**  
>TT:<strong> This is a pool party.**  
>TG:<strong> yeah okay if we wait for the filter to deal with it**  
>TG:<strong> also john? is that why this kanaya thing isnt as clear cut as it probably should be because i dunno i thought things were cool between you and egbert**  
>TT:<strong> Oh my god I understand. This whole conversation makes sense retroactively.**  
>TT:<strong> You're genuinely concerned, aren't you? On some level, this level of the unknown in your friendships is setting you on edge.**  
>TG:<strong> well its not exactly normal but i dont exactly get to check in these days so im not exactly peachy when shits upside down and i didnt know or get to say a thing in edgewise good or bad**  
>TT:<strong> Yeah, I know that feeling.**  
>TG:<strong> oh**  
>TG:<strong> yeah sorry about that i guess**  
>TT:<strong> No. No I understand.**  
>TG:<strong> do you think so?**  
>TT:<strong> Well…**  
>TT:<strong> No.**  
>TT:<strong> Do you want to talk about it, perhaps if I make some sort of embarrassing gesture to dilute any connection between "Do you want to talk about it" and psychiatry?**  
>TG:<strong> nah lets just not**  
>TT:<strong> Nothing I can do at all?**  
>TG:<strong> you could fill me in without distracting us with even more pointless dick jokes or troll anatomy discussion thats just gonna end up spurting forth from your writing noncon flagella**  
>TT:<strong> Filling you in about me and Kanaya?**  
>TG:<strong> yeah**  
>TT:<strong> Well, if you think that would help. There's not much to say.**  
>TT:<strong> But where to begin…?**  
>TT:<strong> Can I be candid with you or are you going to be in one of your moods?**  
>TG:<strong> which one ive got plenty**  
>TT:<strong> Too true.**  
>TT:<strong> But are any of them emotionally available?**  
>TG:<strong> are any of them emotionally available she says like she doesnt know me at all**  
>TG:<strong> ill have you know im fully in touch with my emotional side**  
>TG:<strong> clearly you missed out on front row seats to dave "sensitive" striders "ballads sung in the shower" for the past week or so**  
>TT:<strong> Was that last week? Why, my tickets have been wasted!**  
>TG:<strong> yeah dont think i didnt notice you missing in the audience through the shower curtain rose**  
>TG:<strong> cuts me right here**  
>TT:<strong> You should sing a song about it.**  
>TG:<strong> see if i don't**  
>TG:<strong> drop me a beat on the walls just drum it straight out**  
>TT:<strong> Jade's between you and me.**  
>TG:<strong> shell pass it on shes cool**  
>TT:<strong> Or how about we talk about Kanaya.**  
>TG:<strong> too late**  
>TG:<strong> sister didnt come**  
>TG:<strong> to my naked jamboree**  
>TG:<strong> how else am i gonna sing**  
>TG:<strong> about my twisted family tree**  
>TT:<strong> Stop it.**  
>TT:<strong> Singing about your exhibitionism is getting us nowhere.**  
>TT:<strong> Weren't you the one complaining about the flirting just moments ago?**  
>TG:<strong> doesnt realize this aint no kiddy peixes party**  
>TG:<strong> just a public viewing**  
>TG:<strong> of a striders hot body**  
>TT:<strong> I don't feel mature enough to be in a relationship and so don't field comfortable in either quadrant but am being drawn by sexual and filial connections towards both in spite of myself.**  
>TG:<strong> now does that feel better?**  
>TT:<strong> Good. GOD. Did you have to sing out loud?**  
>TG:<strong> im running pesterchum on dictation cant you hear me**  
>TG:<strong> besides youve gotta feel it in your bones rose**  
>TG:<strong> rl rapping never fails**  
>TT:<strong> Normally I'd ignore you but today I need advice.**  
>TG:<strong> whatever youve gotta tell yourself to sleep at night**  
>TG:<strong> why not just tell our favourite virgo that youre not gonna move up on her one way or the other**  
>TT:<strong> Because I don't feel mature enough to be in THIS relationship.**  
>TT:<strong> This trial one.**  
>TT:<strong> And telling her that would feel like I had been lying to her?**  
>TG:<strong> okay well why not tell her that before it gets worse**  
>TT:<strong> But I would also LIKE to be mature enough to be in not just this relationship but also the others?**  
>TT:<strong> And she seems to have no issue with us being in this relationship so perhaps I AM mature enough for it and haven't realized?**  
>TG:<strong> fuck**  
>TT:<strong> A sort of first timer's paranoia.**  
>TG:<strong> this isnt fair youre the one who told me all psychological shit i know so i cant really say anything you havent thought of**  
>TT:<strong> Then give me a new angle. Teach me the wisdom of the lost Cult of Rap, Sifu Homeboy.**  
>TG:<strong> rose rappers arent exactly the best source to draw your relationship advice**  
>TG:<strong> like i think the net total of all our learning is that weve got all the bitches**  
>TG:<strong> as in presently**  
>TG:<strong> they are already here**  
>TG:<strong> rose do you want to get all the bitches**  
>TT:<strong> I don't think there's any correct way to reply to that.**  
>TG:<strong> because the only advice i can give you is:**  
>TG:<strong> already have all the bitches**  
>TG:<strong> as you can see it makes perfect sense**  
>TT:<strong> I can suddenly see why you're the Hero of Time.**  
>TG:<strong> look rose**  
>TG:<strong> hold on

A few moments later, Rose heard a kick at her door.

"Oh. Well then," she mused, and then got up and opened the door. Once he was in, she shut the door and turned up the lights, knowing her preferred dim would never work with Dave's shades.

Dave sat on Rose's bed. "We're gonna do that thing where I ask you something and you tell me without sitting around thinking of some snarky bullshit response. What's the called?" Rose was about to answer but Dave immediately cut in: "Don't care. Point is: we're gonna get all psychiatrist up in this shit. So, okay?"

Rose leaned against her dresser and nodded. "If we must."

"Just gotta answer me four questions," Dave said. "First thing that comes to your head."

"I understand."

"Now…" he said, and he set a fist in his opposite hand. "Do you wanna hook up with Kanaya?"

"Dave—"

"I mean old school, writhing red here," he clarified.

Rose groaned. "You really can't be this direct… I…" Rose sighed. "Yes."

"All right, we're getting somewhere." He shifted position and called up one of his half-swords. "Now, do you wanna be the one to go and stop her if she tries to cut some bastard in half with her chainsaw?"

"I really can't see…" Rose was not sure what she really could not see. "…I mean, wouldn't you want to stop _anyone_? Isn't that a cultural difference here?"

"Well there's part of your problem," Dave said. "Maybe you should be looking this up a bit more, Rose, I mean this isn't something you can just toss out like that. They don't like 'em, but the Trolls do have a term for 'best friend' and shock of fucking shocks, the term is: 'best friend.' If it was the same god damned thing they'd use the same god damned word, and just like all their other 'friends', they toss 'em to the curb if they upgrade."

"I know that."

"There's a difference between besties and diamonds and that difference is in the elite Kevlar-plated field that is Advanced Chainsaw Interception and all the emotions that lead up to that. That's what she's gonna expect and if you barge in there with your 'Oh, I'd help _anybody_ bullcrap' she's not gonna get what she wants out of it."

"Like a sexual person who doesn't truly understand their asexual partner. Different expectations leading to disaster. Yes, I get that." Rose scowled at Dave's implication that she hadn't been doing her homework. She was about to show him some of the DVDs Karkat had left her when he spoke up again.

"Look, okay, let's go to the mushy pale heart of it, then, past the violence crap. The mushy moirail memorial moments."

"Proud of that, are we?" Rose asked.

"Yes. Next question from me, and no thinking this time!" Dave adjusted his shades to show he meant business. "Do you think you've got that kinda connection, resonating at the deepest possible levels of your collapsing-and-expanding-blood-pump-whatever ever spelunked by the greatest poets of Troll Disney?"

"I don't… What?" Rose shook her head. "Yes, sometimes!" Rose's hand was still on the drawer with the DVDs, and she slammed it shut. "What, are you testing my reaction time to your bullshit with your powers? What's the point of this?"

"Just trying to see where you stand, shit," he said. "You want question four?"

"No," Rose said. "Yes. Do it anyways."

"S'not so much a question," he admitted. "Just tell me you're not trying to do this relationship shit because you trying to extend the friendship." Rose looked back to him, surprised. Dave was stonefaced, as ever, and added: "Because she's got no way of getting why you'd even do that."

"I… no," Rose said. "No. Not that."

"Good," he said. "…Aradia was talking the other day and it was just sort of…" He pointed to the side of his forehead, the forefront of his mind. "You know."

"Yeah."

"You want my advice?" Dave asked. Rose nodded. "Don't do anything stupid yet. Go take in more of Vantas' Troll fanfiction. Talk to Maryam. Do something stupid later."

"…Yeah. Maybe," Rose said. "...Thanks, Dave."

"No problem," he said, heading back to the door. As he hit the opening button, Rose held out a hand to keep him from leaving.

"Dave," she said. "You still owe me a list. The people you're going to gawk at at the party?"

Dave paused for an unseen blink. "Well would you look at the time gotta go, Rose."

"Oh, don't do this," Rose threatened. "You know I'll have it out of you in a few days, if not at the party itself. Nylon mesh and all that."

Dave met Rose's eyes, tapped her hand from below, and waited until she lifted it out of his way before disappearing into the hall.

* * *

><p>Being just as embarrassed about her bathing suit as she hoped everyone else would be, Jade took some comfort in knowing that Nepeta was going to go to Feferi's with her, as she appreciated the company. Critically, Nepeta would come without Equius, whom Jade did not figure she could bear, considering. Unfortunately, Nepeta had taken this of all moments to remember that she was supposed to be a cat, and so was not wearing a bathing suit at all, but rather her usual ensemble, which all in all made Jade feel worse. She wrapped her threadbare <em>Squiddles!<em> beach towel around her shoulders and watched as Feferi wrestled Nepeta's filthy coat from her back and the shoes off her feet before she got either near the nice clean water. The roleplay did not cease in any event, and Nepeta kept her eyes on the water (lake) and hot tub (hot springs) with tense hesitation from the sides of the room (treeline).

Really, once the others finally arrived, Jade realized she had had no need to worry. The Trolls wore bathing suits just as uniform as their favourite tees: the boys' were black, with the symbol stemming from a coloured stripe along the right side, and the girls' were just like Feferi's, under all of her frills. At first, however, there was no one there but Feferi, Sollux and Karkat, so Jade kept wrapped up for the time being. Karkat was doing laps.

"the cautious huntress approaches the lake to spy on the furtive motions of the elusive katfish!" Nepeta lowered flat to the ground, as cats do, to peer over the edge of the pool, where Karkat came up to her. He was swimming laps (Jade was surprised to find that he was actually quite good) and stopped long enough to meet Nepeta's in-character glare with one of his own. Nepeta narrated on, her voice soft and low enough keep her prey from hearing, if he had not been in her face. "the huntress' purrey is brave, coming to face her in a clash of wills!" At this, Karkat lowered his eyes, and then blew off the thin layer of water on his lips and up in a mist towards her. Nepeta shrieked in play ("Spitting katfish!") and swatted him away and back to his laps. Jade caught a smirk on his lips before he returned to his crawl.

Having convinced Nepeta to give her her towel as well, Jade squatted down on its embroidered cats and wrapped her own around her like a shawl to watch the others arrive. Feferi hustled about, arranging and rearranging the gym's equipment, occasionally slipping into the girls' and boys' change rooms to see if anyone had come from some other route. Not long after Jade arrived, she also sent Sollux off to alchemize pool toys, which he did with much fuss and bother before returning and dropping a pile of encrypted cards to the floor. Many of these became pool noodles and inflatables, and took one of the former over toward the pool.

"KK," he said, and he jabbed at his friend with the noodle.

"WHAT?" Karkat demanded as he began to tread water, but Sollux continued to prod at him, grinning, until Karkat snatched it away.

Sollux giggled. "Eheheheheh. KK. Guess what part of a Smuppet this used to be."

"_Gyah!_" Karkat flung the noodle away, where Jade was a little surprised that it actually floated.

"The nose, asshole," Sollux said, and he splashed his friend before heading over to the toys to inflate an inflatable seagoat.

Equius came next, and did indeed go straight for the pool, joining Karkat in laps, for all the wide berth "joining" would not have normally implied. A few minutes later, Gamzee arrived. A few seconds after that, everyone noticed at once.

"Gamzee…" Feferi stammered, "you're…"

"tHaNkS, i KnOw!"

Gamzee stood at the edge of the pool, slack, with his thumbs tugging at the belt of his bathing suit. This was problematic, considering that he was wearing the smallest speedo Jade had ever seen, bright with swirling, glow-in-the-dark colours that spiraled towards the middle. His natural slouch had his crotch pointed straight out and down, to where Karkat had frozen in panic.

"HeY BeSt fRiEnD," Gamzee said with a grin that grew after he caught Karkat's eye. "Got my waterproof paints on, you like?" Karkat just gawked, and shook his head from time to time. Terezi, who had arrived with Gamzee, finally let out the laugh she had been holding in. She clapped Gamzee on the shoulder before slinking into the water, needing no more of an entrance than that. After a dip underwater, she got up to pull Karkat away.

Feeling modest as a Victorian snowsuit next to Gamzee's crotch, Jade finally saw fit to remove her towel, set aside her glasses and throw herself into the water. The pool would have been big enough for all sixteen of them, much less those Feferi expected to show, and Jade found plenty of room to play. After a few minutes of swimming and a laugh with Terezi, Jade looked back to the poolside to find that several of the others had arrived together. Dave was there, with Rose and Kanaya, who had both dressed as though for a trip to the beach rather than a pool, complete with a picnic basket Kanaya had stuffed full of drinks. They seemed almost out of place without a bottle of suntan lotion. The girls both wore sunglasses on their foreheads and Kanaya was a sight in a long beach wrap and a bandeau top – Jade backed a bit further into the water in spite of herself. The top was odd, for all Jade was trying not to stare, as it was clear to Jade that it did not quite match with the bottoms and wrap to quite the exacting the standards she had expected from Kanaya. Then again, Jade remembered this was also the day Kanaya was supposed to ask Rose about their relationship, and could not help but suspect that there may have been a last-second change in the wardrobe to something more… particular (hehehe). Nepeta, who was stalking about the "hot springs" near their entrance, remembered she was a shipper long enough to slip in a teasing whistle before scampering off.

"Oh, well excuse me if I'm…" Kanaya scoped the room. "Yes, the only one here brave enough to bare her navel."

Any teenaged anxieties Jade might have had at seeing Kanaya's outfit were buried by questions regarding the existence of Troll navels.

Kanaya went on ahead as Dave and Rose exchanged a few words, and Jade saw Rose's tongue train toward the corner of her lips as she watched Kanaya go. Dave made a joke Jade felt was probably related, and Rose laughed before starting after her friend. As she went, she lowered her sunglasses, only for Dave to tap her on the wrist and ask about her shades. She laughed again and answered, something about "all the sunlight," and rolled her fingers by Dave's face to a brief spark of Light.

Kanaya and Rose settled into two of the deck chairs Feferi or Sollux had set up prior, not far from Sollux himself, and Dave came over toward Jade. She went to meet him, but was forced to diverge when he caught sight of Gamzee and pulled aside, forcing Jade to follow. To Jade's surprise, it was only once he had gotten away that he noticed Gamzee's attire and pose, and Dave's façade broke for a moment, his lips parting in confusion. After a moment, he began to mimic the pose: first the slouch, then the hands, then the dopey look straight down.

"'Sup, Harley?"

"'Sup, boxers?" Jade returned.

"Don't know what you're talking about," Dave said, shifting naturally into another statuesque position. His bathing suit was genuine Striderwear, with Smuppets on all surfaces. Jade had her doubts that he had ever wore them before coming to terms with what the smuppets were actually for – at this point, they were definitely worth the irony. The rest of Dave was smooth skin and lithe muscles, which Jade had absolutely no intentions of bringing up considering how determined he was to pose them. Nepeta came to a skidding stop nearby, for whatever reason known only to her. She whistled at him much like she had to Kanaya, playing straight into his game. Later on, it would occur to Jade that Nepeta was probably playing into Dave's little game on purpose.

"'Sup cat," Dave greeted. "You a bird now, too?"

Nepeta screwed up her face. "Nu," she said. "Chasing me makes me dizzy."

"Good, because birds are my thing," Dave said, and Jade feels he's fairly lucky that Nepeta did not overhear, because he would have been another dead craneraptor if she had.

Not that he didn't deserve it. "Hey Dave!" Jade chirped. "I wanna show you something."

He arcs one eyebrow. "Girl in a bathing suit with no pockets in an empty pool wants to show me something. Yeah, this ain't suspicious."

"Well maybe I want to…" Jade tried to drop her voice and even winked a little, "…_show_ you something.'

Like she should have expected, Dave decided to open by critiquing her bluff ("Well, it's not _that_ empty.") before moving on to her wink: "And what the hell was this?" He then began to wink his own exaggerated winks.

Jade had to admit, she was out of subterfuge, and patience. "I'm going to pull you into the pool, Dave."

Like Jade had hoped, Dave had not expected her to pull out of a verbal repartee so quickly. He had been spending too much time with Rose. "…Like hell you will!" he said, but he did not pull away his arm fast enough.

"Come…" she said, before overpowering him at once and pulling him well into the water. Jade thought she heard Karkat's sputtering and shouting even before she returned to the surface, and sure enough found him pulling to one side of the pool to get away from her.

Dave surfaced soon after, put his hands straight to his face, and then triumphantly declared: "And the shades are all right!"

"Fucking… could've killed us!" Karkat said from the far side of the pool. Jade was about to say something, but Dave spoke up first.

"Oh please, Vantas. Like you haven't taken a dozen Ogre clubs to the head and I bet you're just like you were when you came into the game. Which is sad, really." Dave then reached up and took off his shades. Jade gasped: if only because it was the reaction Dave expected and Karkat was simply not going to provide. Dave lowered his bright red eyes at Jade. "You're gonna pay for that," he said, pointing with his folded shades.

"Am I?" she asked. "Who's gonna _make_ me?"

"Me," Dave promised, pulling his shades into his sylladex before he started to splash towards her.

Jade kicked back. "Well you've got to catch me first!"

She pulled away, giggling.

* * *

><p>All things considered, Rose was enjoying the party very much. At first, she and Kanaya stayed parked in their chairs while the others went about at their leisure; there, Rose buried her nose in a novel as she and Kanaya began another of their neverending conversations. Kanaya was pretending to sun, reflector and all. "Whatever floats your boat, Kanaya!" Feferi said after they had explained tanning, though she continued to throw them suspicious glances from then on out. As they settled in, the others arrived.<p>

"Equius!" Vriska called from one of the boys' changing rooms. Equius was so involved in his laps that Jade had to hit him with a pool noodle to get his attention. A few minutes later, he had returned, dripping from a second trip to the showers. Soon after, Vriska, Eridan and Tavros followed, Tavros hung about his matesprit's neck: Eridan was carrying him in with Vriska's help. His legs had been left behind.

"Get me something sturdy, would ya?" Eridan said to Vriska.

"I'm goin', I'm going!" Vriska headed around to the inflatables Sollux had alchemized. He was nearby, and pointed her towards one he had prepared special, apparently on Tavros' instructions.

Rose tapped Kanaya on the arm. "Your handiwork?" she asked, regarding Tavros' lower abdomen, which had been fitted with some sort of waterproof cap locked into place to protect one last patch of electronics that had not been removed. Rose suspected they must normally connect Tavros' nervous system to the legs.

"The amputation, yes," Kanaya said. "Recovery was more Equius' field. I think John's been looking into it since."

"Our heirs of medicine," Rose mused, and watched as Eridan helped Tavros into the water on Tavros' request.

"I've gotcha," Eridan said, and he repeated himself often, more and more nervous the more he took on Tavros' weight as he simultaneously tried to remember how to swim. "I've gotcha," he said at last, this time with relief as he seemed to settle.

"It feels… pretty good!" Tavros said, almost as nervous as Eridan. He celebrated by squirting water out of a fist at Dave, who had been trying to sneak up on Jade. Dave yelped with surprise at this second shot to his dignity, and swore when that made Jade notice him.

"Oh, now things are just getting fucking hostile in this pool," Dave said, and dived in the opposite direction to reconsider his plan of attack. Jade was not much relieved, as Tavros scored a hit right on her nose.

"Hoooooooold o—hey!" Vrika snapped as Jade swept her arm to catch both Eridan and Tavros. "What did I just say?"

The three set to work getting Tavros into his floating chair, which involved getting him first back to the edge. Gamzee helped, moving for the first time since his talk with Karkat, and Jade played for a while with Terezi until taking a short break to poke Dave in the ribs. Other than that, things were very orderly, and when John finally arrived to complete their group, Feferi finally saw fit to get into the pool herself. Nepeta, once again full cat, continued to slap cautiously at the water, as though it would bite her. It seemed to Rose that she was nigh-high asking to be pushed in, but she felt a little too preoccupied to deal with that and would have to let one of the natural pranksters do that for her.

"Looks like fun!" John said by way of greeting as he came by Rose and Kanaya. "Going to go for a swim before you go?" he asked.

"Before we go where?" Rose asked. John's eyes flicked over towards Kanaya before saying anything to Rose, and swiftly realized he had been caught in the act. Rose turned back just in time to see Kanaya hide a signal she had sent him with his hands. Thankfully, she fessed before John made any poor excuses.

"I just told him the other day that I figured we would go back to my place after the party," she explained. In and of itself, this was not suspicious to Rose, but Kanaya's initial attempts to snuff it out had ruined its innocent impression. Luckily for Kanaya, that just helped her plan along. Before, Rose would have simply gone for the sake of going. Now, she was curious.

"All right," Rose said, all-knowing. Kanaya grabbed for one of her drinks to excuse her non-response, and John waved goodbye before to set down his towel. As he worked, Rose watched as he caught sight of Nepeta and immediately caught Rose's same bad idea. But John was a refined prankster, at least in terms of over-complication, and to Rose's surprise he walked away from Nepeta and off toward the only other person still out of the pool: Sollux. After a quick, whispered exchange that had them both giggling, they were both headed back to the pool.

"as the careful purrbeast continues her pawtious check, she begins to wonder if it is safe to go for a bath—the careful purrbeast has guests!" Nepeta looked first to one and then the other, and there Rose saw the beauty of John's plan, as she was too distracted to realize what was about to happen, as John and Sollux dropped down to the ledge beside her, and pushed her in. After that her narration continued "Bffpfft, ffp, gyak—!" before roleplayers' instinct took over and Nepeta began to flail like a housecat towards the ledge. There she pulled up on top with both arms to catch her breath, and sent a death glare at each boy as she dripped out from under her hat. Slowly, she reached up to pull off the hat, wrenched it out and returned it to her sylladex. Far less slowly, she then lunged out at them both and managed to grab hold of Sollux, whom pulled him in after her.

John followed of his own free will before she turned on him as well, and after splashing him with her foot, Nepeta went off on her own. She recovered her mood fast enough, as seen during a brief but animated visit to Tavros' chair, which Eridan was guarding like an amphibious hawk. After that, Nepeta went back after John, revenge in her eyes, but was interrupted by Equius, who admonished her on her sopping outfit. "But I don't have a bathing suit!" Nepeta complained.

"What you had was an entire day in which to make one," he pointed out.

"Hmph," Nepeta complained, but after she did, she caught sight of Karkat, resting in-between laps and watching the discussion from a distance. Suddenly, Nepeta was in the mood to compromise, and reached first to her side and then to her hip to remove her shirt and grungy pants into her sylladex. This left in her underwear, which was so uniform-spartan that none of the other Humans seemed to notice and none of the Trolls seemed to care, save Karkat, who recognized what she was doing and had done his best to leave the scene before he could be accused of anything at all. Nepeta pouted to see him go but went off to join Jade, instead, who didn't seem to notice anything unusual even as she was hug-tackled from behind. Rose reasoned that the sturdy underclothes were the exact sort of thing one needed in a society of blade-wielding children, especially if one went hunting the local monster animals. Spry and muscular, Nepeta proved to be a terror in the water. Teamed up with Jade, she darted through the water with some speed, eager to coordinate an ambush they had planned.

"John raises a good question," Rose said, as Dave's arms gave out and disappeared under the water with the rest of him. "Do we want to go join the children?"

Kanaya laughed. "I hadn't intended on it. Do you?"

"Maybe if they calm down," Rose replied. Not that they showed any sign of stopping. For want of keeping him afloat, Tavros and his friends remained an island of stability, but the rest was chaos, and soon even an orderly diving game started by Feferi fell into disorder as Karkat, who had been dragged there by Terezi, started to cheat whenever his new kismesis was up to go.

The object of the game was to retrieve several coloured balls from the bottom of the pool in a single dive – the kind of improvised game one creates when one's toys only useful properties are whether it can or cannot float. Terezi could not smell the balls once she was underwater, but was not that bad at finding them if she took in the water ahead of her dive. Unfortunately, Karkat quickly discovered that she could not pick out the blue against the pool tile. Rose felt bad that she and Feferi had not caught on as long as they had, especially once Karkat tossed in a handful of nothing but blues as a finale. Shoving followed. Pelting with balls followed that. The Vantas/Pyrope promise to keep the kismesis cerebral was off to a fantastic start.

Unnoticed by all for a time, even to Rose, Gamzee had made off with more than a pair of the balls by stealing them during the arguments and hiding them in a broken pool filter with his feet, sneaking out one or two when dives began. In the end, it was someone outside their group who caught him in the act.

"Really, GZ?" Sollux asked, swimming up to him.

"Hey, bro-bro," Gamzee said at first, as lacking in presence as ever, hardly the kind of person you'd expect to be cheating at a childrens' game. He completely failed to notice Feferi come up from behind, even when Sollux pointed her toward the filter. She groaned, and that made Gamzee jump. "Whoa, chica, didn't notice you there, all up in my personal space."

Feferi jumped back into the pool and stuck her arm into the filter to pull out ball after ball, as she muttered something about how she "knew" she "should have fixed this!"

"I've never seen those before in my life," Gamzee said, before the first ball had even cleared the surface.

Karkat and Terezi had still not noticed the exchange, and Sollux glanced at them before he told Gamzee to "Just don't start anything stupid."

Feferi took his lead and tossed Gamzee the last ball, which he received happily. "Right the fuck away, my man-man." The moment they turned about, he plugged the ball back into the filter.

Feferi, hearing the plunk of the ball hitting the water, shook her head, but then changed her mood completely before jumping over to Sollux.

"What's up, gourami?" she asked. Sollux did not seem to fully understand but months as Feferi's matesprit had clearly taught him to take it in stride as a fish reference.

"Last thing we need is TZ going after GZ in some sort of law-crazy caliginous two-plus-one-way," Sollux said.

"Aww, looking after my party!" Feferi said, in a way that was only just teasing. Then she gasped. "You're like their auspistice!" She leaned forward with a toothy grin. "I should tell them! I will!"

"What?" was the wrong reaction, and Feferi almost got away before Sollux grabbed her by the arm. She immediately tried to escape below, and Rose's attention was pulled away by shouting at the other side of the pool. Dave, it would seem, had gotten his hand a pool noodle, Jade and John had soon armed themselves with their powers, and all three of her best friends had taken up half the pool with their wobbly fencing.

Vriska pushed Tavros carefully out of the way of the fight, Eridan tailing close behind. "Geeeeeeeeze," she said, "someone should have told us to come armed!" She looked back and shouted: "Hit him, John!" _Thump._ "_There_ we go!"

Tavros laughed. "It's like the big fight between Hook, Scar and Bones."

Rose was surprised to find that Vriska knew exactly what he was referring to, as she was at a loss, and it seemed Eridan was as well. Vriska even laughed. "You're right! Caught in the shallows, stabbing at each other, trying to be the last one alive before…" She got an evil look in her eye.

Even stranger to Rose, Tavros shared it. "The cannons!" he shouted.

"Cully!" Vriska said to Eridan. "Fetch the captain his ammunition?"

Eridan was too confused to argue, and went to Gamzee to borrow the remaining pool balls, many of which were now being held up in a pyramid by an incredibly dextrous pair of feet.

Eridan looked at the trick wish admiration. "You know, speaking as friends, you should really try to unicycle with your hands and juggle with your feet. It'd be more impressive, you know?"

Gamzee did not reply at first. Instead, he looked towards Eridan, almost as much at him as past him, glassy-eyed and absent. Uninterrupted, Eridan began to collect the balls from his feet, placing them in one of his inventory bottles. Gamzee did not initially react to this, either, save in how he seemed to freeze all over. That caught Eridan's attention, and he looked up to meet Gamzee's eyes, which ignored him. But after a moment of looking in Eridan's general direction, Gamzee seemed to twitch at the lips. Slowly, his smile appeared, cracking into existence and pulling up, up, and then more, exposing his upper fangs as his smile grew bit by bit. Eridan began to back away, and only then did the lines around Gamzee's eyes tighten as he seemed to notice him for the first time.

"HeY fIsHbRo," he said, in his absolute normal tone.

Eridan choked. "S'goin' all right, Gamz," he said, in response to a question that had not been asked. He patted Gamzee's hand where it lay on the edge of the pool. "You're a good kid."

Eridan turned, and Gamzee's hand snapped up to grab him by the shoulder. Eridan seemed to shrink away into a little floating ball. "Hey bro," Gamzee whispered, such that only Eridan and Rose with her powers could hear. "You datin' my moirail?"

Eridan's response came out more as a squeal than words. "Yyyyeees?"

Gamzee clapped him hard on the shoulder. "Lookin' after him too?" Eridan nodded. "All right then, my man," he said into Eridan's ear, and he tossed Eridan another ball. Rose was not sure from where he had pulled it. "Doin' a great job! Right?"

"Right, Gamzee!" Eridan agreed.

Gamzee nodded. "Doin' a great job."

Eridan fled.

Vriska snapped up the balls as soon as Eridan poured them from his broken virtual bottles, and armed him and Tavros at random. Tavros smiled to Eridan, and tried to ask him about his talk with Gamzee, though Eridan just shook his head. Shrugging, Tavros raised a hand. "Annnd… fire!"

Meanwhile, Rose's friends fought on, oblivious. "Face it, you guys," John had been saying. "You just can't get past my _Double Noodle Defence_."

"Well you can't hit anything with them!" Jade pointed out. "We just have to— Ack!" she shouted, as a ball crashed into the water next to her.

The Double Noodle Defence proved less effective against projectiles, and Dave's attempts to bat them out of the sky only rearmed Tavros and his trusty crew. Things were looking bad for the Humans, until Jade dropped her noodle and began to return fire.

The only real casualties in the fight belonged to those not fighting the war, though Tavros nearly fell in the water at one point. Karkat and Terezi were constantly interrupted from their argument by errant projectiles, and Equius had to find a way to return balls that had landed near him without embedding a deflated wad of rubber three inches into the tilework ("COD DAMMIT -EQUIUS!"). Kanaya even got hold of a red ball, but despite Rose's insistence that she "Aim for the head," the ball landed somewhere in between the combatants where John bravely went out to retrieve it.

Under the bevy of fire, Sollux and Feferi re-emerged in a far corner where they were able to go without ducking for cover for an extended period of time.

Whatever they had been talking about between ducks for safety had clearly run its course. "Hey," Feferi said, as a change of subject. "Do you know if Aradia's coming?"

"AA? Why would I know?" Sollux said.

"I dunno!" Feferi said. "Who else? I mean, you two are—"

"Try him," Sollux interrupted, pointing to Equius.

"Whaaaale… I don't really want to ask Equius," Feferi admitted. "He and I are having a bit of a—"

"Hey, Horsebreath!" Sollux called.

Equius stopped his laps and began to tread water. An angry look began to cross his face. "Why did I respond to that name?" he asked himself at first. "Most especially from you."

"Can't imagine," Sollux said. "Look, have you seen AA?"

Equius, judging the truth from Sollux's tone, glared toward Feferi and answered her instead of her unintended middleman. "Miss Megido's schedule is erratic, and I'm not necessarily privy to it." He did not seem much pleased by that. "You'd be better off asking _Strider_." He seemed even less pleased by that.

"Strider?" Feferi repeated, and Sollux: "Eh? Why?"

"I know nothing more about the details than either of you, I can assure," Equius growled. That, at least, was directed at Sollux, as if daring him to say otherwise.

Sollux, clearly not caring to respond to Equius, turned to Dave instead. "Well, I guess we can wait a bit," he said.

But Feferi did not. She headed over at once, holding up an arm to deflect an errant cannonball. Eridan ceased firing at once and Tavros, seeing his matesprit halt, did the same. Vriska only threw one more ball, braining John, but after that she seemed to decide it was no fun to carry on alone.

"'Sup?" Dave asked in the sudden, eerie silence, once he realized Feferi had come up to him. He plucked up the ball that had bounced off of John's head and tossed it to himself as he spoke with her.

"Have you seen Aradia?" Feferi asked.

Rose leaned over to Kanaya. "Well that's not going to get her anywhere."

Sure enough, Dave's response was: "Sure, lots of times."

She groaned. "I mean, is she coming to the party?"

"Dunno," Dave said, tossing his ball from one hand to the other. "Is she into rust? I bet she is. 'Oh, my lowlooded loovely,'" Dave impersonated, trying to land Equius' tone and failing, He reached out with his hand and mimed stroking an invisible cheek. "'I've taken all of the necessary precautions. My touch will never again make you…'" Dave then made a sound that was probably meant to be rusting. "'…Fiddlesticks.'"

"I'll have you know," Equius boomed from the other side of the pool, "that Aradia was always equipped with the best available anti-rust protections. I am a consummate professional."

"Oh we know about you and 'consummate,'" Dave said, and Rose mouthed along with him, having seen the reply coming well ahead of time. "Well at least he's self-aware," Dave said on his own, and then shrugged. "Dunno, princess, you had better check around." He then turned and chucked the ball to one side, hitting Karkat. As Karkat fussed and swore, Terezi started to laugh, but stopped as soon as she caught sight of who had thrown the ball. Dave gave no impression that he had noticed.

Feferi was pensive, but returned to Sollux and guided him to the poolside. "I'm gonna go find her," Feferi explained, kissing Sollux goodbye.

"Why?" Sollux asked, echoing Rose's inner thoughts.

"Beca—"

"rarrrr!" In an instant, Sollux and Feferi disappeared in a blur of water and motion, and soon Rose was greeted with the sight of Feferi stuffing her fist in front of her face to keep from laughing as Nepeta exacted her revenge on Sollux, narrating: "the terrible beast latches on its first unwary purrey, threatening to pull it to the depths below!"

"Dammit! FF, help!" Sollux admonished.

"I can't!" Feferi squealed, which was true mostly for laughing. "I'm sorry, guppy, you shouldn't step between a shippershark and its prey!"

Sollux struggled with one of Nepeta's hands. "That's bullshit and you—"

"Yes!" Nepeta proclaimed, sitting upright from where she was tangled about Sollux's back. "That's what I am! the shippershark has come to get you to purrsue your quadrants!" She gently pushed him towards Feferi. "Kiss! Kiiiiiiss!" Sollux threw Nepeta off of him and back into the water, where she surfaced after a delay, eyes narrow, and tapped too fingers together. "Kiiiiisss," she murmured, and swam away.

Unfortunately for Feferi, she had not taken advantage of the opening to escape, and she and Sollux were soon talking again in harsh whispers. The hissing, barely heard debate escalated very quickly, so quickly that Rose was not able to follow it, might very well have escalated into an open fight if Feferi had not been forced to crack down on rulebreakers running around her pool as things intensified between her and Sollux. In what could be described as a show of solidarity even under pressure, Sollux threw his weight in behind all her decisions, only for the both of them to return to their snit fit the moment eyes were off of them.

For her part, Nepeta snuck up on Equius. In spite of her efforts he saw her coming from well off and sighed with resignation as he waited for her to arrive. She made no sound as she went, or at least, none Rose could make out over the sound of Feferi and Sollux on one side and Jade and John on the other. It would seem either John or Jade had tried to tickle the other, only to learn that Dave was better at it than both of them. Not that he would ever have admitted it.

"the furrocious shippershark edges in for another of her most purrculiar sort of kills!" Nepeta said. She then pounced and latched around Equius, her face fierce as she demanded: "_And how are your relationships?_" like some kind of aquatic Cupid Claus. (Claws?)

"My quadrants are fine, thank you Nepeta," he tried, but she only climbed higher, trying to speak into his ear. "Nepeta."

"the shippershark says: 'Mr. Grouchy Boy had better start standing up for himself when the dave human is making fun of him, because it doesn't make him look very STRONG.' Does it?"

"Stop this at once."

"the shippershark is wondering if maybe the f001ish musclebeast that wandered into her lake—"

"I thought I was the 'grouchy boy,'" Equius pointed out.

Nepeta glared at his hair. "…she was thinking about what they were talking about the other night. about… ah…" Her eyes darted about the room, unaware that Rose – and Terezi, Rose noted – were listening in. "…a second quadrant?"

"Second quadrant?" Equius asked, and Nepeta made a face. "I remember our discussion about Miss Megido, but I don't know what you mean about a second quadrant."

"You know," Nepeta said, and she made a face. "Your spades."

"Don't be silly," Equius demanded. "I don't have a _first_ quadrant." Nepeta cocked her head. "I thought I had a moirail, but I'd never consider a relationship with articulate sealife."

Nepeta's eyes went wide and she laughed. "Oh my pawd you made a joke. Karkat!" Karkat dived underwater as he swam past. "He made a joke!" Nepeta giggled as Karkat escaped to the opposite end of the pool. Nepeta then lowered herself down to hug Equius and purred. "Actually," she said after a moment, "that's sort of what I want to talk to you about."

"Yes, you wanted to talk about Aradia," said Equius.

"No!" Nepeta's voice dropped. "I was wondering if… you know…"

Nepeta's whisper from there was much harder to hear, a rare show of a huntress' legitimate stealth for all she chose to forgo it on a regular day. Rose could not pick it up.

"Don't be absurd," Equius said, shocked. "Me and Miss… Aradia and I…"

"Oh come on," Nepeta said. "Why not?"

"It's absurd! It's… 100d! It's _wrong_." Nepeta groaned in response as he began to carry them both away from the others.

They continued to talk as they went, Equius growing more and more agitated with each step. Rose strained to hear more, and so had to jump when she heard a "honk!" beside her. "Hey," Gamzee said, his bulge hovering over Rose. "Could I be all up and grabbin' one of your kickin' elixirs?"

Rose found herself just as speechless as Karkat, in the great long shadow of the thing. Her only source of mental comfort was that anyone else in the room would do the same, until Kanaya suddenly spoke up and said: "Go ahead, Gamzee." He left soon after, tossing the bottle to himself like a juggling pin.

"Curse your lesbian powers," Rose muttered.

"My what?" Kanaya asked. Rose had not really intended to explain, but Kanaya was interrupted all the same. "Oh!" she said, as Vriska arrived with the first of what turned out to be nearly a dozen drink requests from the others. A line had soon formed. For a few minutes things Rose and Kanaya's chairs became the centre of the party. There was a moment of confusion once the basket had been emptied, and Kanaya began to look around, but it was Rose who found her chastity key, somehow having displaced her regular bookmark in her novel. She passed the key to Kanaya, who unlocked a cooler of drinks prepared for just such a contingency. As she worked, Dave appeared by Rose's side, his eye on Gamzee and his eyebrow cocked. "So," Dave said. "That's no cloaca."

"No," Rose granted. "…but it is Gamzee," she said, trying to pay more attention to her book than either boy. "Perhaps he just shoved something into his pants. Why don't you give it a squeeze and see if it honks?"

"Or if he does," quipped Terezi, who was passing. She chuckled at her own joke as she passed. Rose looked up at that interruption: Dave ignored their passer-by, and for her part, Terezi seemed to have made the joke for her own sake and was ignoring them in turn. The two of them were starting to intrigue Rose enough to justify an inquiry, but here at the party was not the time for such a sensitive discussion. Terezi went from there to chat with Eridan and Tavros as they hung out in the pool waiting for Vriska to return with drinks.

"By the way," Rose said to Dave, to shift his attention away from Terezi, for all he pretended not to look. "You'll be happy to know that in spite of your on-hand interactions with Jade and your crotchward gazing in regards to the clown, your poker face remains intact. Nylon mesh and all that."

"My wha—oh. Right." Dave looked away, and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Well whoop-de-doo for me."

_Nice try, Strider, but…_ "Of course, I did say I'd try to break it myself if necessary," Rose threatened, and tapped her chin in thought. Her finger presented the answer straight away, and so Rose looked up to Dave and then licked at her fingertip.

Dave was looking away, and so had no way of truly knowing what Rose was doing, but he had an instinct for that sort of thing. After a while, when the others had left with their drinks, he asked: "Kanaya, is she making an obviously licentious Human gesture behind my back?"

Kanaya, who had been reading one of her magazines, looked up with a sigh and found Rose looking back to her, her finger in her mouth. Rose cocked an eyebrow. "…I can only presume," Kanaya replied, and snapped her magazine before returning to it. Dave left with a snort. Seeing him go, Kanaya leaned toward Rose and asked: "Score one for you in the incest minefield of competitive passive-aggression?"

"Aw," Rose said, "and you were worried you wouldn't understand siblings _or_ passive-aggression!"

Kanaya smirked. Later, she asked another question. "What was all that?" When Rose looked to her for clarification, Kanaya popped a finger in her mouth, and Rose laughed.

"Oh, you'd owe me for that answer," Rose said.

"Not if it's what I think it is, but I can't be sure," Kanaya said, and she rubbed at her side. "…What would I owe you?"

"Oh… that depends," Rose said with a grin of her own.

Some chat later, there was an outburst from Tavros' group. Terezi headed off, smiling though not exactly gloating. Whatever she said, it had left Vriska scowling.

"I'm getting a tube," Vriska proclaimed, as if that somehow made up for things. Eridan called after her, and "All right, all right!", Vriska got a second inner tube for him as well, and soon all three were coasting about on the water.

"Would you like something to drink, Rose?" Kanaya asked.

"No," Rose said after some thought. "I think I'm going to go for a swim now that everyone's finally calm."

She got up and headed into the water, which was warm and inviting, and took the opportunity to enjoy herself, including trying to incite another water battle between John and Jade (Rose felt that if her psychiatric skills were not being put to use for good, they might as well be put to use for evil). After a quarter hour or so, as Rose was gossiping with Karkat as they both rested between laps, they realized that they had come to a stop just within earshot of Feferi and Sollux's ongoing fight, which had at some point or another moved out of the pool and into a far corner of the room near some fire equipment.

"Human Christ," Karkat swore, but Rose noticed he did not break away from the ledge any more than she did. Feferi, who was leaning up against the corner with her arms crossed, had been saying something about Aradia Rose had not been able made out over Karkat.

"Oh my god, FF, will you stop it?" Sollux demanded. "youve been on my nub about thii2 for day2! why do you even care?"

"I'm just trying to help!" Feferi protested. "The only reason you two have been so much as in the same room since you hooked back up is because you never leave the computer lab!" Karkat snorted a laugh, and Rose silenced him with a glare. "…You're not talking," Feferi added, her voice sad and fading. They both looked very tired.

"It's been three days!" Sollux said, never-the-less.

"And this is the perfect excuse to finally do something together!" Feferi countered.

"It's a pool party!" Sollux pointed out.

Feferi threw up her hands. "Well what was I supposed to do? Invite everyone to someone else's place?"

She pointed out to the pool, and Rose and Karkat both feigned that they were turning back on their laps at that very moment. After a moment of frustration, Karkat found a lost pool ball and he took to gesturing with it as he talked. "If she fucks things up with him, I'm never going to hear the end of it. And then SHE'S never going to hear the end of it!"

Karkat tossed the ball to Rose, and she took up their exchange. "So your excuse is… you're being a good buddy? Interesting. Does he know about this blatant, pale interest?" Rose returned the ball.

"Hey, I wouldn't keep that whiny son of an Earth Female Dog in one of my quadrants if he literally crawled up my ass and picked out drapes!"

"What's with the Human swears?" Rose asked without being given the ball.

"I dunno, John asked me to branch out," Karkat said, a bit too honestly. He deliberately hit Rose in the shoulder with the next ball, and she made sure to aim for the throat when his next turn came. "What's your excuse?"

"I like to know what's going on," Rose said, and took her opportunity mid-sentence when he would least expect it. "It keeps me sane."

Karkat coughed to regain his breath. "Why, because everyone else is crazy too?"

As they had been fighting, Feferi had carried on. "Besides!" she had said as Karkat had thrown the first ball. "_I_ like to swim!"

"well maybe you 2houd ju2t miind your own bu2ine22 then!" Sollux argued. "Since when is what I do with my own friends such a big deal to you? you haven't an2wered my que2tiion!"

"What you do with your quadrants is my business, buster," Feferi pointed out, "and because I CARE about you!" She collapsed back against the wall, and pinched at her nose. "Ugh, I can't fight with you when you're like this!" She turned her head aside and muttered, so low that Rose wondered if Sollux even made her out. "Why am I always attracting oblivious dorks? First Eridan—"

"What about Ampora?" Sollux asked, having caught at least that much.

Feferi shouted this time. "First Eridan, now you! And you haven't filled a quadrant ever despite Karkat, Aradia, Gamzee, and yes, Eridan too!" Sollux made a face – so did Karkat, Rose was upset that she hadn't caught whether it had cropped up to his name or Eridan's – but Feferi continued, stamping her foot. "We both need someone stable for once, don't you sea?"

A gentle splash nearby had Karkat and Rose both jumping out of their skins as Nepeta came in, unnoticed. "I can help with that," she said to them.

"Shh!" they both replied, and pushed her back under the water.

Sollux was almost shouting. "FF, I'm not one of your culling projects!" That had her surprised, and speechless. "You just keep poking and prying, and you thiink ii dont notice?"

Sollux had not replied, so Feferi, talking with her arms now, got up to leave. "Well I'm going to be proactive even if you won't!" she said.

She stormed out, Sollux letting her go without issue. If anything, he seemed to be getting a headache. Rose felt a cold, firm grip on her back as Nepeta dangled off of both her and Karkat's shoulders to get a better look at the scene. "Aw," she said when she realized it was over.

Karkat glared at her. "What are you doing?"

"Hangin' out!" Nepeta said at once, and only then realizing her pun, she gave a big smile and began to swing back and forth between them in the water.

Rose was about to say something, when someone atop the edge flicked her over the head. She turned to see Dave standing there, as she did, Karkat gently extracted Nepeta from Rose's shoulders. Rose soon had had to look back at the Trolls, when Nepeta chirped "Oh!" and Dave looked their way.

It would seem that, in her surprise at being removed from Rose, Nepeta had latched both arms around Karkat's neck. Karkat's hands tensed in the water beside her, as if he were struggling to decide between violence or harsh words, and to Rose's surprise, he settled on a rare display of good behaviour. Karkat put his hands on her torso – well and, judging by his eyes, deliberately away from her bra – and pushed her away. It was more like a kind suggestion than a forcible removal. While Nepeta had obviously not misinterpreted his gesture, her reflex response was to giggle and near-blush, such that Karkat had to reach for her hands as well. That, at least, convinced her to find her self-control and let go. She went swimming back toward Jade.

"Smooth," Dave said to his fellow Knight.

"Gallant, even," Rose said as the thought crossed her mind.

Karkat grunted in reply at first, but then said: "Here's another one from John: fuck off, nunsacks." He then flipped them both off, and swam away.

"Mine," Dave muttered, "that was _mine_." He shook his head. "Anyway."

"Yes," Rose replied, turning back.

Dave pointed over his shoulder, toward the redundant set of changing rooms that interlinked Feferi's dungeon home. "I'm out," he said.

"Out: I'm too cool for this shit 'out'?" Rose asked. "Or—"

"_Out._" Dave confirmed.

Rose tensed, and began to shimmy along the ledge and back to the corner, as far away from John and Jade as possible. Pulling her weight up onto the ledge, Rose let out a tired sight and clasped a fist in the opposite hand. "Right," she said. She must have been mumbling, as Dave lowered to sit by the pool. "You know, you've really got a way with pulling a girl down." He smirked. "Just going to leave us in the middle of the party?"

"My shift," he said. "Girl's gotta plug in her batteries just like everybody else, and we can't really leave it—"

"No," Rose agreed, to keep him from saying anything anyone might overhear. "I mean, I know we were talking about it, but guess it just hadn't really sunk in that you were just gonna up and…" He shrugged. Rose was not sure quite what she wanted to say. "I was talking to…" Rose cut off before saying Terezi's name in hope it might be fudged in Dave's head to John's. "I heard things are pretty bad."

"Eh," Dave said, with just enough of a lilt that Rose felt he meant it. "Pretty routine, really."

Rose lowered her voice, and her eyes. "…I hear we've all died."

Not looking at him, Rose did not see Dave's exact response, but she imagined the usual Strider stone-face. "…Yeah."

"But you've been able to—"

"Usually we keep it from happening in the first place," Dave interrupted. Rose harrumphed into her arms. She had not been ready for this conversation, for all she had been joking about it earlier in the day. That said, she felt that it was important to get things straight from the beginning. She tried to keep her eyes off of Dave, trying in vain to hear his answers from his speech alone, to pretend as though it were his usual text typing in front of her. She was familiar with the words, but not the motions and the sounds and the looks: Rose had no basis on which to judge her friend in the real world. She just had not had the time.

Dave was talkative enough, for all the answers were stoic and useless, little more than Rose had already inferred from logic or her chat with Terezi. "Just you, John, Harley and Vantas," came one answer.

"Oh, Jade knows?"

"Pretty recent."

Another question answered: "Eh, it's dull, mostly," and another, "Maybe every four shifts?" when the subject finally shifted to Jack. Dave's forthright responses made Rose more sure that he was still obfuscating the truth, somehow. She envisioned the worst kind of exaggerations, with the sixteen of them dead and Dave and Aradia forced to rewind time and time again to keep them in place, and Jack always the returning figure, flicking in at the edge of her imagination. Vaguely, she remembered the last time she had been able to get a good look at the demon dog. John had lain dead on the tower, and Dave's body lay smashed against the Battlefield tile. She knew how she would have felt, if she were in Dave's place, and with him pretending to be so measured and calm…

"What about you?" she asked him after a while.

"I'm late," he joked, though Rose had to admit she had kept him there longer than he had probably intended.

_Damn the man_, Rose thought. _Covering us is one thing, but doesn't he realize we're _concerned?

Rose looked up at Dave and, as she did, she noticed something odd about him that she had not noticed before. Unfortunately, that was also the moment Dave stood, and started talking his way down a segue that would allow him to leave. Feeling the need to say something, anything at all to keep him from leaving at once, Rose rallied together a bit of rote sentimentality, much to her humiliation: "…Promise me you won't _die_, Strider."

Dave did not miss a beat. "Well if you insist, but I gotta say, you're fucking with my evening plans here."

_Damn._ With Dave in the zone and her off her feet, Rose felt there was no other way to proceed than to dig herself in further. Calling his attention with: "Dave…", she passed along her message along without the traditional joke, by pointing to her chin.

Dave looked at her funny, and then rubbed at his own, which clued him in. "…I'll have to go bug Egbert tonight. Dork's got more shaving cream than he'll need in his life. Thanks," he added to Rose. "Hadn't noticed."

"Yeah," Rose said, her head falling back to her arms. "Me neither."

But Dave's calm expression faded as he caught sight of something in John's direction, and went visibly confused. "…The hell are they doing?"

Rose turned, and saw Jade and John, both with drinks in one hand and game powers channeling through the other, playing with a basketball-sized orb of pool water. Jade held the ball aloft as John attacked with quick bursts of spinning air. "Hey, Rose!" John called after a moment, not looking up. Then he added: "Duck!" The ball was then teleported away.

Rose realized what they were doing a second too late, and tried to get underwater only to feel the freezing-cold ball of water pour out on top of Dave, dousing her in the process.

"Sorry, Rose!" Jade said with a laugh. "Bye, Dave!"

"Bye!" John chorused.

Dave locked eyes with Rose, but then headed out, calm as if he were a much drier, warmer man, and left the room for the showers, a trail of icy footprints left in his wake.

* * *

><p>After showering off the chlorine and getting dressed, Dave found that his extended chat with Rose had left him with limited time to get ready for his patrol shift. He waved to himself in the changing room as he entered the showers, and set to scrubbing.<p>

Patrols were nothing worth writing home about, unless Jack showed up too close for comfort. Usually, they meant standing outside on the roof or pacing the meteor, keeping an eye out for the man himself. Some days, it meant adjusting the sensors, but unless Aradia had noticed something irregular, that wasn't likely to come up that particular evening, as they had been at them the night before. But for all they were usually boring, every patrol first meant getting ready to go into fight, just in case. Dave waved to himself in the showers as he exited the changing room and headed back home.

After some stretches, Dave dumped out everything he had brought to the party in his sylladex for one potential joke or another and replaced them with sharp things, heavy things. Jack had never learned to hashrap – if they weren't flying around all the time, it would have been the perfect way to fight the bastard.

Dave left his room all but late, and after a bit of a walk, decided he'd rather be early, instead. That kind of Time play tended to leave him more tired than not (an early attempt to give himself a whole night's sleep during the game had ruined him for two days), but a minute or two here or there were not going to hurt him in the long run. He figured he might fill Aradia in on the epic pool war she had missed out on, maybe convince her to make an appearance while he was gone and come to the next party if someone ever threw another. To his surprise, he found her far earlier than he expected, not far from the exit to the Lab. That was her luxury, he supposed, being able to link with the sensors wirelessly, but she usually preferred to sit alone. He could see why, as today, hanging out indoors had gotten her caught by Feferi. When he caught wind of Aradia's suspicious tone of voice, Dave ducked behind a corner. His partner would know he was there, of course, but Feferi…

"…this entire p00l party setup was a ruse"

Feferi replied, sheepish but forthright: "The pool party idea was already on-hand when I _needed_ a ruse."

Aradia did need to pause for any further calculation. "theyre n0t h0nestly that hard t0 distract"

"They are! Kind of!" Feferi cleared her throat, and she slumped against the corner with her back to Dave, arms crossed. "Don't you think it's a little hard to get them all pointed in the same direction?"

Dave didn't need to see Aradia to know her response was a robo stone face of one who took some serious issues with rhetoricals. "Please get to the point."

Feferi paused, and adjusted her hair with one hand. "All right," she said, and threw her hands up. "…How's your love life?"

Some part of Aradia beeped, another ribbited. "This is about Sollux."

Feferi sighed. "It's not R-E-ELY about Sollux—"

"In the interest of getting this over with as soon as possible," Aradia said, "are you trying to ward me off or to gather information?"

"I… I'm _trying_ to…" Feferi went on a tangent: "Look, I'm trying to give an informative answer without sounding indignant." She then cleared her throat to buy additional time. "I am… sort of asking to gather information. It's not just Sollux! You've got… other quadrants…?"

"Equius," Aradia concluded. "sollux and are are starting fr0m scratch," she explained. Slowly. "if i fill any 0ther quadrant it will be because that pers0n fits it AND s0llux d0es n0t" Aradia said, dodging the new question entirely. "thats really all there is t0 say 0n the matter if it means anything at all"

"And I'm ALSO wondering how YOU feel!" Feferi said, though there was something less genuine on her voice, mingled with frustration. "Sollux has told me so much about you since we met, but I don't really know how you felt about him back then, and how you do now about… ANYT)(ING!"

"I'm taking the chance to make up my mind," Aradia said. "That's the point, after all."

"Ugh!" Feferi swung back her right arm, perhaps to hit a wall that wasn't quite there. "Maybe I just want my matesprit to have someone in his life that can make up her mind about stuff that actually matters!"

Feferi stormed down the hall from there, her eyes on the ground as she went. A few steps down the hall, out of sight from Aradia, she stopped, tensed, but in the end, chose to press on. In doing so, she bumped into Dave. "Oh. Sorry," she said, acting as though nothing more toward had happened than a hallway collision. She sidled past Dave before clearing out, double-time.

Dave found Aradia lingering where Feferi had left her, standing neutral, which he had long had come to see as "lost in thought." Being backed up by a computer, it was a pose that tended not to last very long, and this was no exception. "On shift?" she asked him.

"Yeah. What the hell was that about?" he asked, nodding back toward Feferi. Before Aradia could answer, he through in his support. "Subtle as a great white torpedo."

"There's a right and a wrong way to check your quadrants' quadrants," Aradia said, once as though to Feferi's trail rather than to Dave. "That was not it."

"Tell me about it. And I don't even have any stake in this mono-poly quarter-fuck." Dave headed toward the hall beyond, barely pausing to set a hand on Aradia's shoulder. "Go take a break," he said. "Maybe tell Two-Squared that he's dating the Dropout from the Black Ops Lagoon."

Aradia smirked and pushed him out to the hall by his shoulder. "Tell me if you see Jack," she said. "Might be easier for me to just hit something."

"What else is he good for?" Dave asked. "Hitting, ruining parties, maybe we tie a bone to his tail get him to chase himself around in a circle. Classic!" When she didn't respond to that, Dave changed his approached. "Hey. Don't mind the relationship shit today. Everybody's knee-deep."

That got a reaction, if only sarcasm. "Oh? You?"

"Of course me!" Dave said, and then he sniffed dramatically. "I confessed to my long-lost son today."

Aradia blinked, first with eyes and then with lights, obviously aware this was a joke but unable to work out exactly how it worked. "…You don't understand our 'mono-poly quarter-fuck'," she repeated. As her live personality bubbled to the surface, she began to play with her hair. "And I don't understand your Human family tree dynamics."

"Fair 'nough," Dave said. "Feel free to abuse 'em, then. If Pinky comes back to you, you just tell her that Captor's like a brother to you. A second cousin, maybe. Or a creepy uncle!" Aradia pushed her hair out of her face to get a clear look at Dave as he babbled. "We could work on creepy uncle, dude could pull it off. By the time she realizes we're bullshitting her, you'll have it all sorted out and a sweep worth of other things."

"Hmph," Aradia said as a laugh. "Or I could just make up my mind. She's a jerk, but she doesn't have a _bad_ point." She tucked back her hair and smiled.

"Hey, so long as that's coming from you and not Princess None-Of-Her-Coddamned-Business up there in your gills," Dave granted. "But throw me a bone here! Come up with a new reason to throw Peixes into my prank, or you're just gonna hurt its feelings, you know?"

"Oh, definitely," Aradia said, and seeing that he turned to go, added: "Have a nice night. I'm going to download _Troll Bioshock_ and blow up an underwater city. No reason."

"Yeah, see you. Five minutes, though," he said. "I've gotta go alchemize a moustache."

"Is this for your stupid plan?" Aradia asked.

"The creepy uncle moustache is the cornerstone of my stupid plan, I'll have you know." Dave started one step down the hall before something occurred to him. "Hey. You and me. Let's play 'Lalonde' here for a minute. Doesn't leave this room. Captor: making out or making right?"

Aradia grinned at the phrasing, and started to think on the choice. "Well…"

"Nope, nope. No thinking," Dave said, "this worked with Lalonde this morning it'll work here. It's magic." Aradia opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off with: "No! Nope! No. I'm magic!" The last cut off nothing more than a would-be laugh. "See, that's not how this is supposed to work. You've gotta trust me and just spit it out. It's too late now, forget it. Let's be honest here: he's just another one in your line of guys stretching on into forever."

"My what?" she asked.

"Oh come on," Dave said. "You've got the sasquatch. You've got the nerd. You've got the default in a scarf, though don't feel proud about that. Stop smiling!" he added, and Aradia forced her body into a straight-face. "That's creepy as fuck." That broke it back to a smile. "Now where was I? Oh, right. You've got the wiener…"

"I _should_ talk to Tavros again," Aradia said, as much serious as she was playing into the game. "You've caught me, Strider. I'm just mad pimpin'."

"You fucking are," Dave said, though he had to cover up a laugh with a cough to say it. "Next thing I know you're going to be watching some of Egbert's concentrated phlegm and he'll be none the wiser as you work your way into raiding his Cave of Wonders. Next day you'll be breaking out the Animal Crackers for the big… trapeze finale." Dave screwed up his face. "There's a visual I didn't need."

"Don't take it personally, Dave," she replied, and rubbed his, "you'll be the crown jewel in my collection. Whipping up mixes for me every day, getting your jam on. Getting my jam on." She stopped her hand up against his neck. Her hand was still a strange mix of inner heat and cold metal, but her face was teasing. "No worries," she said, but then removed the hand to check its nails. "With my permission, of course."

"Hmm…"

"Don't talk back!" she interrupted.

Dave nodded. "Okay, give me a second." He held up to hands like a scale. "Mixing all day… versus sloppy eighths after Egbert and the clown."

"That's the deal," she said at first, but then waved it off. "Oh, I suppose I could squeeze you and John together."

"Mean me and John could squeeze y—" Dave had to stop himself. "Did you walk into that or are you just not aware of what you're saying? I just don't know where to draw the line with you twelve, you gotta give me a point of reference that doesn't involve propositioning Egbert."

Aradia reached up to tickle Dave under the chin, perhaps to see if he would allow it (he did not). "…See you in a few guys, Dave," she said when he pushed her hand away. "Of course, if Feferi gets any weirder, maybe I'll have to push you back one more step."

"Not complaining," Dave said at once.

Aradia raised an eyebrow. "…Oh, interesting."

"Hey, just on principle, I mean."

"Mm-hm." Aradia found he was willing to let her set a finger on his chest. "I'll have to ask Rose about this one."

"Just don't mention the thing with squishing and John," Dave said, and he turned without reacting to her touch. "All three of us will never hear the end of it."

"Going to go back to your moustache plan?" Aradia asked.

"Definitely. Make sure to tell Rose about that one," he requested. "Or I'll show up wearing it myself, one way or the other."

"You got it."

Dave pressed on and out the door, not honestly bothering with a moustache. Instead, he found himself wishing Aradia really had shown up to Peixies' pixie panties party, because between the two of them they would have had the whole place under their dorky thumbs. _Next time._ Soon he was outside, on the dusty surface of the asteroid, and tried to toss aside his thoughts so that he could focus on Jack, and work.

But as he let the Lab's outside door shut behind him, Dave found that he was not yet alone. The air outside – if it really was "air" in the Medium – was deathly still, as ever, and the sky was clear past the asteroids, but Karkat and Terezi's voices echoed from around the corner. They appeared before Dave could react, but what could he have done? Turned away? Walked up to them? They were obviously Going Outside on what Dave figured was their first Hatedate, probably sprouted by their fighting at the pool. They could have left any time after he had gone to the showers. It wouldn't be right to interrupt, and it wouldn't do to be seen running away. Still, Dave tensed up at the sight of Terezi, like he had wanted to do ever since Rose had mentioned Pyrope that morning, and would have done every time he saw her if Rose and the others hadn't been around watching him. He stepped away from the door, just in case they wanted to leave that very pass. That would have suited Dave just fine.

_What a day_, he thought.

"Do you know what your PROBLEM is?" Karkat asked Terezi, not having yet seen Dave. "I'LL GIVE YOU A HINT. YOU'VE TURNED THIS PLACE INTO A CLOWN STY IN ABOUT THE PAST NINE HOURS. HOW DO YOU DO THAT? PERSONALITY ISSUES, THAT'S WHAT. THAT''S YOUR PROBLEM."

"Not really," Terezi laughed. "You just go 'H3Y G4MZ33, L3T'S GO FUCK SH1T UP' and he's like—" Terezi stopped, sniffed the air deliberately and, not liking the result, stuffed her hands in her pockets. The two of them were back in their usual clothes, though the void-air had done nothing to dry out their hair. Terezi stayed silent as they approached.

Karkat lowered his eyes and doubled his pace. "Oh. It's just you," he said to Dave. "What are you doing up here? Taking yourself out for a well-deserved Hatedate?"

"She knows, asshole," Dave said. "Nice communication."

Karkat looked from Dave to Terezi and seemed to decide it was better off not rising to the taunt. "Oh," he said instead. "Fine then. We'll be going. I just thought it was Megido's shift a little longer."

"Just missed her," Dave said. "Must have headed in after you headed out." Karkat harrumphed and led Terezi toward the door, even holding it for her.

Dave tried to hold it in, at first. He tried, and he tried, but as he watched Terezi go, trying not to even look at him, memories started to well up on him. During the day, or even the past few days, those memories had been memories of the fight, of her screaming and shouting confusing xeno-sentiments at her and of him locking himself in his room like a baby while John and Jade pounded on the door. Now it was different. Now they were happy memories.

"You sure know how to pick them, don't you?" he said to Terezi without thinking any further. "He's just a fucking gentleman. Bet he's just as nice to you after _your_ shit-fits as he is to your girlfriends."

Terezi stopped. "Wh—" Dave's mouth dried out. "What?"

"Nothing," Karkat said, eyes flicking back and forth between the two of them. "Nepeta," he explained.

Terezi was still trying to find her voice, but Dave knew the next comment was definitely directed at him. "Nepeta and me broke up our trial. While ago."

Dave adjusted his shades. "Oh, so then it's a trend."

She turned on him, and Karkat took a step back, as far as the door would allow him. "What do you want?"

"Oh, nothing," Dave insisted, "just commenting on your choice of company."

"Company?" Terezi pointed to Karkat, who was not putting up a very admirable display as Fated Rival as he kept the door in front of him like a shield. "I knew what I wanted and I went for it," Terezi insisted, in defiance her kismesis' display. Indeed, this seemed to strengthen Karkat's resolve, somewhat. "Same with you," Terezi said to Dave. "You didn't have to say yes. You just didn't have to piss on it as you went out!"

"Him?" Dave said, as though he only fully understood what she was saying now. "I wasn't talking about _him_! God knows I don't want anything to do with your black shit! A bro doesn't even have to try to get in that lineup, does he!" Terezi tried to speak up there, but he cut her off. She let him, if only in hope for a better opening. If Dave had been keeping a step better focus, he may have given her one. Instead, things fell apart. "I want as much to do with your spaded _fuck-quadrant_ as I do with you pissing on all my friends with your culture's anti-friend…" His mind reached for Troll swear words, but floundered against the rocks. "Ugh!" He looked down as he searched for words.

"Go ahead, Strider," Terezi muttered, arms crossed. "I didn't give you a chance to talk the first time. Go spit all over my shoes. Looks like that's all you've got."

"And the clown!" Dave shouted instead. He was losing his cool and it was starting to feel all right. A voice at the back of his head – his Bro's, if it was anyone's – warned him that he diving straight off into an empty pool, but he didn't listen. "You kick me to the curb— You knock me down with this crap about 'Oh, I can't be your friend,' and 'I don't want anything anything to do with you if it doesn't involve your cock—'"

"That's not what I said!" Terezi shouted.

"'Or you doing some alien bullshit that you can't even feel—'"

"TH4TS NOT WH4T 1 M34NT!"

Terezi stamped, perhaps aiming for Dave's foot and missing, but it was clear she was now too angry to continue with her opening. As a result, Karkat stepped in. "Listen, dickhole—"

Dave pushed him aside, and spoke fast to keep him from getting in, not knowing if it was some kismeslids thing that he was allowed to pick up her fights for her or what, he didn't particularly care to deal with any of that Troll bullshit right now. "And then what do you do?" he said to Terezi, "you push me out and five seconds later, what? You pick up the clown! _The clown_!"

Having offended two of his friends, Karkat surged against Dave's arm, but Dave held firmed. Terezi hissed her reply. "Five seconds—! That was a week!"

"The clown and Rose!" Dave continued. "But fuck Rose, Rose is smarter than that. Rose is smarter than _you_. But the clown! I keep trying to think it through straight but I can't help but come back to the clown, because I can't help but think this is the real deal, huh? That you're really going for Miracles Makara, and—"

Dave, on the verge of shouting, recovered his cool, knowing it was all he was worth to do it. "Just never really knew you, did I?" Dave gave Karkat one last shove as he tried to cut back in. "Piss off, man," he told him. "I've said my peace. Let the lady talk for herself." But Terezi said nothing. "Well?" Dave demanded.

Terezi barred her teeth at him. "I'm better than this," she told him. "So are you." She growled and checked herself: "_I thought_ you were..." she corrected herself, "Argh!" With that, she turned, threw open the door and headed down the hall.

Karkat gave Dave a cautious look, and despite it all it was a leader's look, wondering just how to handle Dave without letting things get any worse, and for a moment, he had Dave's pity. In fact, the more he thought about it, the sight of Karkat's look Dave feel worse, knowing news of the fight was only going to reach out its claws and grab John, and from John, everyone else. But for now, Dave held his ground.

Karkat whispered to Terezi as they disappeared down the hall. Looking for an excuse to say anything at all, he settled on asking: "Well how the hell was I supposed to know you knew about them watching for Jack? You never said a damn word!"

"What was I supposed to say? 'Oh Dave's such an asshole, I wish he wasn't saving our lives every day?' How am I supposed to react to that, Karkat? Huh? How do you think it feels to hate… t' _shut out_ someone that you owe… everyday?"

Feeling far too awkward to keep the door open any longer, Dave let it close behind them. Karkat started to say something else, something like "Well for starters…" when he and Dave were both interrupted by a violent crash. Dave yanked open the door.

"SHUT UP!" Terezi shouted at Karkat. From the looks of things, she had backhanded him, and far harder than intended, slamming him against the wall. "WH4T DO YOU KNOW? JUST…" She turned and left down a hall Dave knew led nowhere whatsoever. "We were fine!" she shouted to the hallways. "Fine!"

Dave left the door shut then, leaving the Lab behind, and began to walk away, at one point muttering "Well that went well." He crossed the asteroid, coming to approximately the opposite pole, where he squatted down on the ground and started to think. After a long while, he began to smooth out the sand into a workable layer, and took a broken metal rod from his sylladex to draw on his new palette.

"Jack," he whispered to the void, "do me a favour, dickweed. C'mon man, one goddamn favour. You're always hitting me up at the wrong time. Can you just cram it up your dog-nook tonight?" He doodled Sweet Bro fleeing the unfinished scene with crocodile tears trailing behind him. Dave liked to imagine the tears were done up with a foil wrap filter, along with other random parts of the scene caught in a bad selection, but as that was not really an option, so he just spat in them and called it high art.

"I just need a night to think, all right? Lalonde's all cracked up about her and Maryam but if you ask me, she's got weeks. I'm thinking I'm a week in and maybe I'm the one that needs advice. But you don't get advice looking this good, not even from your own sister. Now that that's a burdern I'm prepared to live with, but… maybe I got myself thinking everything was fine and so I didn't ask her shit this morning, and now that everything's definitely not fine, and… well…"

Dave added in Hella Jeff to the background, reaching forlornly after Sweet Bro with an outstretched hand that not dissimilar to his shoes. For artistic reasons, Dave doodled in Geromy in his usual pose, but so it looked like he had his arms around Jeff. In loving comfort, perhaps? And also in clipping errors. Dave made sure to draw one line of the arm cutting through Jeff's neck. Geromy was perfect, as ever. Not many people knew this, but he was drawn by hand every single time. True story.

Dave added a speech balloon to Sweet Bro that read "mY feelings!" Masterpiece. "So since I'm not getting anything from Rose, I've gotta think like Rose instead. And that means you _fuck off_, Dogshit! Got it?"

Dave began to add another panel, of Hella Jeff in closeup. To this, he added a balloon, pointed inside of Jeff's eyeball, which read: "But what about…." This tailed into a third panel that consisted entirely of a speech balloon with emotion-filled, tiny text that read: "..MY feelngs?" Dave finished off with another spit-tear in panel two, this one without a border.

Dave stood up and took in his newest work. He spun his improvised pen in its direction. "When I turn twenty, I'm going to drink so hard I'm going to forget every goddamn teenaged year. That is my solid pledge. And if Megido's not feeling like helping me down some straight-up ethanol fuel, I'm taking two years each from Rose, John and Jade. And one from Vantas, just because."

In spite of it all, he took a picture of it with his shades, and headed back to the Lab to begin his patrol.

* * *

><p><em>"The nose, asshole." Don't get too smart, Sollux. I have a feeling that might be what the nose is used for. *wonk*<em>

_This was the first half of what was meant to be the End of Act. The next chapter will be relatively soon. Relatively._


	10. Closing Time

Well, folks, sorry to say, but this is the point where the ball stops rolling. I won't be able to write any more chapters, but this isn't the end! For the next while, I'll be talking about the remaining chapters, in detail, of what would have happened, why, character motivations, symbolism, authorial intent, and of course, excerpts, which will include, as I mentioned on my tumblr, the entire finishing scene. A number of scenes I'm just fond of might get written up entirely just because. We'll see as we go. Though for not being able to carry through, even to as far as the next chapter and the end of act, I am truly sorry.

However: _as these commentaries most certainly will not be allowed under this site's strict content rules, I must advise you go to Archive Of Our Own via the link at my profile, as I will be unable to make any further posts here. Thank you. _There the incomplete chapters and provided commentary will fall neatly under the comfortable banner of "fanwork" and can be preserved, which should be the point, shouldn't it. While this site will truncate the link, simply add this to the base Archive Of Our Own URL:

works/330885/

If I'm in the mood, I may also do a post-mortem of both drafts a few months later, though is anyone ever really in the mood to write a post-mortem? Sometimes you just don't want to go back.

You probably want to know why. It's a combination of four major factors. Firstly, the stress factor: not the fic itself but its impact on _other things_. For the longest time, _Hands_ has been my source of comfort, but those days have passed. It would be one thing if I were doing professional writing with my time, but it's not possible to tell my other job "I can't cover for my co-worker's newest hangover-day because I need to write my fanfic." It's easy to come to resent your hobby when it actually _costs_ you in both free time and chore time, nevermind the guilt of thinking "If only I had been working on the other thing…"

Speaking of the other thing, my "external influence" has failed. This is no mean problem. This was my major hope at finding real work, a centerpiece for my portfolio. It wasn't meant to be a major piece, or especially my last hope, but that was what it became over time, and with its failure I think we can see that I never had much hope in my chosen field, or much ability. In the past few months I've slowly lost any hope of finding work in my field, and with the final failure of this project, it seems I may not even be able to enjoy the field as a hobbyist. Failing to complete this fic means a large chunk of two years wasted, but failing to complete the external influence is the final step in the failure of about seven years total. I'm not even sure what this makes me, now, if I can't be what I'd been planning, searching for, building towards. My remedy for the problem is to begin a new project, and there's no room for the fanfic in that schedule. Well, maybe there is. Part of me suspects I'm lashing out at _Hands_, but the other problems are indicative.

The third problem is the drop in readership. Technically this is misleading: the last chapter had a very high _boost_ in readership, but we all know it's because you were drawn here by a demo chapter promising more of Gamzee's crotch. Come on, you can tell me ;). It really depends on where you want to measure, but if I were a CEO, these numbers would be less of an excuse for the shareholders to fire me and more an excuse for them to set me on fire and punt me out a window, because they would have nothing else to lose and everything to gain by doing so. This is my fault. To those readers who aren't reading this because you left for lack of regular updates or a dislike of the new draft in general, I deeply apologize. As a factor in ending the fic, my reasoning should be clear: as I stated during the vote for the end of the first draft, I pride myself more of an entertainer than as a writer. This draft has been a poor source of entertainment. In that regard, it has been as much a failure as my external project.

With stress, there is no joy. With pressures, there is no time. With failure, there is no pride, and together, there is no reason to continue to squeeze myself through this hole. But for those of you who are still here, the entertainer in me thanks you, the author in me thanks you, and both of those (and my inner, screaming instincts as a gaming completionist) promise to carry through with the notes to the end. I'll even throw in a bonus for those who stick around: the last planned Homestar Runner-style intermission from the first draft. Karkat, if you'll recall, was "Preparing for the fucking inevitable" and I never got around to finishing it. That's last, though. Because I'd actually have to finish this one. It wouldn't really be funny in summary-form.

One step at a time, though.

For those that never finished the first draft, I will be redirecting you to those chapters as we go through the next few, as I only actually made it about half-way through this second draft. If you want to start reading now, go to Chapter 10 of the original draft, but if you have the patience, bear with me, and I'll be sure to provide a context and reading guide for each chapter explaining what was going on in the original draft (it's quite different), how the chapter was going to be adapted and so on. Once we get past the end of the first draft, we'll be purely in notes and excerpts territory, but hopefully I can make that entertaining. As usual, updates will be on my tumblr and the MSPA forums thread.

Thank you all once again for your time, your attention, your proofreading and criticism where applicable, and most importantly, the chance to entertain you through plot, humour, character relationships, and in the case of the first draft, recast jokes from a 2000-9 web series, like the muses most certainly intended. I hope to see most of you as we carry through to the end.

* * *

><p>I'm going to leave this message up for a few updates, after which it will probably be replaced with a less florid post simply explaining that this was the point where the fic ended and that readers are about to enter the Behind The Scenes chapters. Have no fear: your comments, insults and mimed reaction gifs will be preserved!<p> 


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